Black Shamrock (Shammerdoo): A Poem

By Patrick Slevin

Dermot Healy wrote – ‘We forget what we owe to what we’ve forgotten till we encounter it again out of the corner of the eye, in passing.’ 

Shammerdoo (Seamir Dubh) is a townland near Kilkelly in county Mayo. Its meaning is black sorrel, or shamrock.

BLACK SHAMROCK (SHAMMERDOO)

Image used with kind permission of the Connolly family

I never knew him. Not the black and white

Young man. Not the Kodachrome old. With the 

Good wall behind him and the dog. The face

Ringed with lines like the map of his hill, breezes

From Paul Henry skies. 

Image used with kind permission of the Connolly family

  The grass doesn’t grow

In the mud from Mary Anne’s where he walked

Every day, only cloven prints now outlined

By green dew, and purples and blues clawing 

Out from old stones. 

We search to stoke fires with 

Burnt tongs. 

        Your past and our future collide

In the present behind this barbed wire 

Lock. 

           It reeks of the fields in here.

Old jacket still hanging behind the old 

Door. Springs erupt from the mattress, unslept

And rotted with rust. You say no to opening

The flea ridden hag curtain, the doll’s house

Image: © Patrick Slevin

He built you sits still on the floor. Rain briefly

Cracks on the wrought orange roof but the sleep

In this stead carries on, like all those days

Before. You remind me there was ten of 

Them once fractioned in these three rooms. I 

Stand in a doorway, it comes up to my 

Neck, I almost sit down in his chair for a

Picture, by the damp dresser, by the green

Image: © Patrick Slevin

And red tiles, clinging under the mantel,

Where a flat Christmas card warns about

Turkey, your mother’s handwriting fades in

Those misty old wishes. We both try to 

Say that sweet Irish proverb, under the

White horse and trap, holding it at angles

To the tiny window, 

later we learn 

It reads ‘Made in Japan’. 

    By some leaning

Brown bottles we pick up the tongs and

Think of the fire, the other side of the 

Hill. You sit on the remains, gently, of 

The good wall, for a minute, it all doesn’t 

© Carmel Slevin

Seem that long ago now. I raise the tongs,

Like in Zulu, and we turn in the sun,

Shining over Shammer, treading backwards,

As fields swarm round the Callaghan place.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Text: © Patrick Slevin

Patrick Slevin lives in Stockport. He has been writing poems and stories for many years.

Patrick wrote 'Black Shamrock (Shammerdoo)' for Manchester Irish Writers' event, 'Echoes of Ireland', performed at the Irish World Heritage Centre Manchester on 9 March 2017. 

Elizabeth’s Vanishing Brogues: A Poem

By Kevin McMahon

Elizabeth O’Farrell was a member of Cumann na mBan, and acted as a dispatcher both before and during the Rising.  She was sent, under a white flag, to deliver the surrender to the British military on Saturday 29th April.  Despite the white flag, she initially came under fire, and was fortunate to remain unharmed.  Brigadier General Lowe demanded that Padraig Pearse deliver an unconditional surrender to him, personally.  He also admired Elizabeth’s courage, and insisted that she should accompany Pearse.  A press photographer captured the moment of this surrender, but Elizabeth, who stepped back, can only be glimpsed – her feet visible behind Pearse’s.

Later that momentous photograph was edited, to remove the offending legs and feet, and came to symbolise the eclipsing of the very significant role played in the Rising by many brave women, and even of the Revolutionaries’ vision of gender equality in a new Ireland.

This poem is about that photograph.

ELIZABETH'S VANISHING BROGUES

i.m. Elizabeth O’Farrell

The photograph of Elizabeth behind Pearse.
Twitter: National Museum of Ireland @NMIreland

A pair of tiny shoes – size four at most – 

Protruding from the hem of Pearse’s coat,

Was caught on film in the moment of defeat,

As Lizzie chose to step back in his shade.

A minor point of little weight you’d think,

But when the public tide flowed Padraig’s way

Such tiny flaws could humanise the myth,

So Lizzie’s brogues were airbrushed from the frame.

Elizabeth, I’m sure you couldn’t know

That you’d become a symbol of the shift

Of Proclamation pledges set aside

As Ireland was exchanging tyrannies.

So “civil liberties and rights for all”

And hopes of “cherishing” – was that the word? – 

“All children of the nation equally”,

Retreated for another hundred years

Behind the stole and veil, with downcast eyes

That failed to see the airbrushing of dreams.

The National Library of Ireland has an online 1916 exhibition. You can find the photograph of Elizabeth and Pearse, along with many others, in the section 'The Surrender'. You can find the section and access the whole exhibition here. 

~~~~~~~~~

Text © Kevin McMahon

Kevin has been a member of Manchester Irish Writers since 1998 – with a few years’ absence due to work commitments prior to his retirement!  He has contributed to the group’s publications “The Retting Dam”, “Stones of the Heart” and “Changing Skies”, and regularly performs at the group’s events.  He is a former winner of the “New Writing” award at Listowel Writers’ Week in Country Kerry, and has been shortlisted for a number of other awards for memoirs and short stories.  With Alrene Hughes, Kevin co-edited the publication of monologues arising from the “Changing Skies” project.  His scripts have been professionally performed in various venues, and he has had poetry broadcast on the BBC.

Proclaim the Dream: A Poem

By Rose Morris

Why were many of the poets and writers  of the Irish Cultural Revival at the beginning of the 20th century motivated to take up arms to fight for Irish Freedom? Why did some of them enlist to fight in the first World War?

For the latter I bring to mind Francis Ledwidge and Tom Kettle who were both preparing to fight for Irish freedom but decided instead to enlist in the British Army following John Redmond’s speech at Woodenbridge when he called on the Irish Volunteers 'to go wherever the firing line extends'.

Tom Kettle wrote a poem for his baby daughter, Betty, to try and explain his own reason for deserting her and going to war in France where he died in September 1916. He wanted her to know that he didn’t die for a king or a country, but “for a dream, that was born in a herdsman’s shed” and for ‘ the sacred scriptures of the poor'.

All the executed leaders of the 1916 Rising had their dreams too and they also left behind letters and parting words to their loved ones and these lines equally live on in this shared history.

PROCLAIM THE DREAM

Kilmainham Gaol. Dublin, Ireland
Photo credit: Carl Mikoy via Visualhunt.com / CC BY 2.0

Whether the dream was born in a herdsman’s shed 

Or died in a stone breakers’ yard it still lives on 

 Through rhyme and reason in many a heart, 

 A revised history, a contested legacy 

Some will look back and call it sublime

Some will say it was a glorious madness

The bittern will cry in the wild sky unheard 

And Pearce will have gone his way in sadness

Patrick Pearse
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Betty may have grown up cherishing her father’s lines 

Believing that he lies in shame with the foolish dead,

Where he fell at Ginchy, buried in some unknown grave

No honour, just blame, she a child of circumstance.

Thomas Kettle
Image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The sixteen who died for Ireland’s freedom

Will be more remembered for their gallant part,

Fifteen face a firing squad in Kilmainham prison yard.

Roger Casement  to hang on the gallows in Pentonville

Roger Casement
NLI Flickr / No Known Copyright Restrictions

Tearful mothers, weeping wives, lamenting lovers 

Take away lines and letters and parting gifts 

As brave men say last farewells and give reasons,

Denying futility, claiming the supreme sacrifice

“Your life, Seán, your beautiful life.”

Mary, take these four buttons from my coat,

The only gift Mac Diarmada had left to give

Joseph, my little man, be a priest if you can.

Seán Mac Diarmada
NLI Flickr / No Known Copyright Restrictions

Counting the cost, McDonagh was ready to pay 

And ‘his song floated upwards on the wings of daring’.

Ceannt faced the firing squad after his confession

Content that Ireland had shown she was a nation

Thomas McDonagh
NLI Flickr /No Known Copyright Restrictions

Heuston died on a soap box, a youthful, calm and fearless face

Joseph Plunkett went to death husband to his darling Grace

Marriage vows exchanged in the prison chapel, bayonets fixed

To the witness words of the Enniskillens chanting prayers.

Beside crucifix carrying priests they walked at dawn

To where a wooden box and sand bags marked a place,

Where they stood to wait, blindfolded and hands bound, 

Before their writhing bodies fell on blood they jointly shed. 

Kilmainham Gaol
Image by: psyberartist (Kilmainham Gaol)/ Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

‘Untie my hands, remove the blindfold’. 

Wishes of McBride, duty bound, the officer denied.

A white target square upon his breast, Con Colbert 

Moved it to a higher place, upon his heart to rest. 

Thomas Clarke entrusted to his wife a final message

To let the Irish people know that he and fellow-signatories 

Had struck the first successful blow for freedom

And  the next blow would win through’. He died happy.

Michael O'Hanrahan
NLI Flickr / No Known Copyright Restrictions

Hanrahan, Daly and Willie Pearce joined freely in the fight

And walked to death as brave as any that had gone before.

Men of vision, Sons of Ireland, faithful and they fought

And the dream lived on in the conscious heart of a nation.

Irish Sky
Image by: By Fabiog82 (Own work)Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

~~~~~~~~~~

Text: © Rose Morris

Rose Morris was born near Dungannon, in Co. Tyrone. Having retired from a career in Art and Design Education in Greater Manchester she now spends more time pursuing her creative interests and involvement in community projects in Manchester and County Tyrone.

She co-founded the Manchester Irish Writers group with Alrene Hughes in 1994.

Her continued involvement and sharing within that group has greatly enhanced the development of her own writing. 

Her short stories, monologues and poetry have been included in the Manchester Irish Writers’ published collections; The End of the Rodden, The Retting Dam, Stone of the Heart, Drawing Breath and Changing Skies.

Rose wrote 'Proclaim the Dream' for MIW's commemorative event, '1916: The Risen Word', which was performed at the Irish World Heritage Centre, Manchester on March 10 2016. MIW received the generous support of the Embassy of Ireland for this event.

First Television: A Poem to Remember Aberfan

By Kevin McMahon

50 years ago today, on 21 October 1966, a mountain of coal waste collapsed in a lethal avalanche into a school and houses in the village of Aberfan in Wales. 144 people, including 116 children, were killed. I wrote this poem in remembrance of those who died, and those who bore and still bear the grief of the Aberfan disaster.  

FIRST TELEVISION

A poem

Photo: Danielclauzier (licensed under CCA). 

21 October 1966

Excitement welled like an unseen spring,

That last day before the half-term break.

With skies dark and thick as coal sludge, 

The rain – for the second day that week – 

Had left us trapped in classrooms

Behind high, steamed and streaming windows.

I ached for the release of the evening bell.

Lessons ambled past my reverie,

Anticipating Bilko’s antics,

Concocting Oxo-family tableaux, 

A cocoon of laughter, where Michael Miles 

Presided over “Yes-No interludes”.

Unleashed by school’s end we ran,

A yelping avalanche splitting the gloom.

A knot of women huddled sombre at the gate,

Heads scarfed against the rain, in quiet talk.

Blushing at my mother’s long embrace,

And pulling at the hand that gripped my own –

With more than usual tightness – 

I rattled out my plans, my hopes,

As she palmed the raindrops from her face.

It sat, intruding on the normal,

On splayed and spindly legs,

Chairs, newly shifted to strange places,

Shrank the little parlour.

Its unfamiliar light transformed

Our faces, pallid as we watched 

A silent throng of mothers 

Where the gates had been,

Heads scarfed against the rain. 

They stood and stared at rooftops

Protruding from the spoil,

And waited for their children.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Photo 'Condensation on a Window in Wexford, Ireland', by Danielclauzier (licensed under CCA). 

Text: © Kevin McMahon

Kevin has been a member of Manchester Irish Writers since 1998 – with a few years’ absence due to work commitments prior to his retirement!  He has contributed to the group’s publications “The Retting Dam”, “Stones of the Heart” and “Changing Skies”, and regularly performs at the group’s events.  He is a former winner of the “New Writing” award at Listowel Writers’ Week in Country Kerry, and has been shortlisted for a number of other awards for memoirs and short stories.  With Alrene Hughes, Kevin co-edited the publication of monologues arising from the “Changing Skies” project.  His scripts have been professionally performed in various venues, and he has had poetry broadcast on the BBC.

Proclamation for All: A Poem

By Bridie Breen

PROCLAMATION FOR ALL

The scroll of proclamation

rolls words off my tongue.

One hundred years on

Easter 1916 bleats from within

the Risen lamb that bled into veins

of the men and women who testified

to the call to rise, to stand united.

A furnace to fire eternal endurance

through the lilt of a freedom song

Each Irish man and woman

Every daughter and son felt the fist of change

It pounded across the land.

Demanding choices to be made 

lines to be drawn, sides to divide

and new history to form.

A mere century on from Grattan’s demise

the tears of many were shed

Emancipation the sought after prize

Innocents died in the fury

while the raw truth of the cause

forced the iron claw to unfurl

Dominance no longer appeased the masses.

The pulse of men whose hearts

 raced as their pens scribed

In a time when signatures sealed their fate

Markers of rebellion, so distinct

they were sought out

to be executed.

History coddled the deep 

mourning of generations

The road ahead transformed

 beyond belief.

Regimes of colonial past 

illuminated   by the rising dawn. 

Home ruled hands may not have grasped

the essence of Irish hearts

Their entrenched will to change

The question remains, as to where we’d be

if the blood of those in 1916 

Became names on a chalked board

Erased  out of our imaginings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Text © Bridie Breen.

Images are in the Public Doman via Wikimedia Commons.

Bridie has been a member of Manchester Irish Writers for quite a few years. Although her first love is poetry, she writes on all topics. She has contributed to the group’s publications “Stones of the Heart” and “Changing Skies”. Her Changing Skies piece is available to download as a voice over. She regularly performs at the group’s events. She has had successful collaborations with New Attitude theatre and Emerge theatre in the past and more recently performed with Athlone Poetry in the Park group. She has taken her love of poetry to local cafe settings. She enjoys writing short scripts too. Her wish is to have a poetry anthology published. In the meantime, she’ll be trying out at performance style poetry venues to showcase new work in the coming months.

Bridie wrote 'Proclamation for All' for MIW's commemorative event, '1916: The Risen Word', which was performed at the Irish World Heritage Centre, Manchester on March 10 2016. MIW received the generous support of the Embassy of Ireland for this event.

Primroses for Aisling: Poem

By Mary Walsh

PRIMROSES FOR AISLING

A poem

It’s rising dawn.

From high on a hill

He looks down over Carlingford Lough

Shining in the low distance.

He turns to see his sheep and lambs

Grazing his land

The land his father worked. 

He loves this place, this springtime of the year,

Has learned the intricacies of birth and death in fold and field

He has tended this night’s births well.

Dawn is well lit

The light below in the kitchen a field away is bright.

A last look about him then he moves towards the house.

But do not imagine his mind, busy with his lambs and sheep

Does not imbibe the beauty of the hills and hedges.

Returning to the house he gathers the spring’s loveliness

A bunch of primroses, moist with dew

Bears them in his working hands

And offers them to his young wife

As she waits at the open door.

The gift, the beauty of their yellow paleness

Fills her with love

She holds them to her face, looks up to him and takes his hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Text  © Mary Walsh.

Images in this post are in the Public Domain via www.visualhunt.com and Wikimedia Commons. 

Image of grazing sheep is © E.M. Powell. 

Mary Walsh was born in County Armagh. She came to Manchester and trained as a nurse in Ancoats hospital. Some years later she went into teaching and taught English in Thornleigh College, Bolton until she retired. She has been a member of the Irish Writers since 2007.

Lest We Forget: Poem for Somme 100

By Bridie Breen

Our final post in Manchester Irish Writers' commemoration of the Battle of the Somme.

LEST WE FORGET

Lest we forget

a watery grave 

or grovelling in muck

in rat filled ditches

by brave young men.

Hell bent on justice

and survival.

There for duty

loyalty to brother 

allies and crown

Full of desire

for a better world

with freedom from tyranny.

No time to admire

amber sunsets

at Arromanche

Each new day dawn

scattered the dead

in grit and gloom.

Ashes to ashes

away from home

Au Revoir letters

written before bullet

shot and shell.

Resilient mothers

suffocated by grief

as paper telegrams 

choked breath and dreams.

The unborn unknowing

of the reason

for bravery.

Three score and ten

the allotted span 

where peace reigns.

Lest we forget 

the sacrifice

of a ghosted generation

that gifted our sleep

by their bloodied youth.

Beaches of golden silt

buried deep the past

Inscriptions as markers

of heroes not forgotten.

We the keepers 

the watchers

of our world.

Lest we forget.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Poppy images courtesy of & © Alison Morton.

Text © Bridie Breen

Bridie has been a member of Manchester Irish Writers for quite a few years. Although her first love is poetry, she writes on all topics. She has contributed to the group’s publications “Stones of the Heart” and “Changing Skies”. Her Changing Skies piece is available to download as a voice over. She regularly performs at the group’s events. She has had successful collaborations with New Attitude theatre and Emerge theatre in the past and more recently performed with Athlone Poetry in the Park group. She has taken her love of poetry to local cafe settings. She enjoys writing short scripts too. Her wish is to have a poetry anthology published. In the meantime, she’ll be trying out at performance style poetry venues to showcase new work in the coming months.

To find out more about MIW's Somme 100 Commemoration, please click here.

The Widow Quinn: Poem for Somme 100

By Kevin McMahon

Just about every village in Ireland had them: old women in black shawls who lived totally secluded lives, often scorned or feared by their neighbours. Few took the trouble to understand such women, or what had made them the way they were. 

At a time of great political upheaval in Ireland, the tens of thousands of men who enlisted to fight in the First World War were derided for turning their backs on the fight for freedom at home  The sacrifice that so many made was disregarded.  This poem focuses on one such case.

THE WIDOW QUINN

Birdsong shrank the road outside her house, 

To a dappled tunnel, thrilled with noise,

Draped with cloak of honeysuckle scent.

Our step quickened when we passed her gate,

Not taking chances, hushed and fearful 

Of the older, bolder ones who risked

A bating shout or threw fir cones at the door.  

We deciphered parents’ warnings,

“Poor woman” comments, shorn of sympathy;

Their surreptitious nods, and knowing looks

Belied begrudged respect for a soldier’s wife.

Her wits had been astray since his early death,

At a place called Somme in France, they said.

A wasted life in England’s war, they said.

One winter day I met her face to face,

Black-shawled as ever, bent with strain

As she hefted water from the roadside spring.

She stopped and gaped a toothless smile at me

But contagious dread tore my gaze aside,

And breathless with panic I bolted home.

That March she died – as she had lived so long – 

Alone, her last instructions written for the priest.

Beneath the widow’s shawl, her waist length hair 

Had been plaited in a coil of startling white.

As she had willed the hair was then cut short,

Its strands hung in the branches of her trees.

When, later, neighbours gathered at the church –

Each drawn by duty rather than respect –  

They shook their heads and shrugged, and all agreed

The “poor old thing was soft this many year”,

While in the budding bushes round her house

The birds wove nests with glinting flecks of white.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Text © Kevin McMahon

Kevin has been a member of Manchester Irish Writers since 1998 – with a few years’ absence due to work commitments prior to his retirement!  He has contributed to the group’s publications “The Retting Dam”, “Stones of the Heart” and “Changing Skies”, and regularly performs at the group’s events.  He is a former winner of the “New Writing” award at Listowel Writers’ Week in Country Kerry, and has been shortlisted for a number of other awards for memoirs and short stories.

With Alrene Hughes, Kevin co-edited the publication of monologues arising from the Changing Skies project.  His scripts have been professionally performed in various venues, and he has had poetry broadcast on the BBC.

To find out more about MIW's Somme 100 Commemoration, please click here.

Testimonies of Trauma: The Somme and other Battles in World War 1

By Rose Morris

Military History has described much of the four months of Somme battles in detail. The records of the regiments attacked and the weaponry used, the comprehensive casualty lists are always used to describe the horrors of the First World War. They explain to us what happened in facts and figures but do not tell the real human story and the conditions in which these men fought. They fail to describe the daily life of the soldier, or of the landscape in which he lived, fought and got injured or died. They do not tell of his family, the loved ones he left behind. It is only from the letters that were sent while alive that we get an insight into their human state, their thoughts and fears, their plight or their reasons for being there.

To learn more about this we are fortunate that the interpretation by poets and writers who enlisted, soldiers letters to their loved ones, artists such as Paul Nash, photographers like Fr. Frank Browne, of Titanic fame, and the diaries of survivors to enlighten us on this aspect of war as they present their observations and feelings in a more emotional and human way.

Over the past one hundred years, so much great writing has been sourced from World War 1 testimonies. Donegal writer Patrick McGill’s novel, The Great Push. Sean O’Casey’s play, The Silver Tassie. How Many Miles to Babylon, Jennifer Johnston’s novel.  Frank McGuiness’s play, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme.  A Long Long Way, Sebastian Barry’s novel.

The Silver Tassie by Sean O'Casey

They tell this story against a background of destruction, pungent smells and of mud and slime all of which appears to be ingrained in the mind of survivors, never to forgotten. Personal reports and stories of World War 1 describes men living like animals beneath the ground in trenches and dug-outs in a ‘world of mud’ and often makes use of words such as burrow and crawl, a language more associated with wildlife than human beings. Patrick McGill served as a stretcher-bearer on the Western Front, remarked “a soldier came crawling towards us on his belly, looking for all the world like a gigantic lobster that had escaped from its basket."

Often highlighted in these expressions is the soldier’s struggle with his conscience on his true reason for being there and his thoughts on the futility of war.

This can be more evident in the work of two Irish writers, Thomas Kettle and Francis Ledwidge for  they have also had to come to terms with fighting on behalf of a country which has historically been perceived as the enemy and both of them had been Irish Volunteers actively seeking independence alongside the poets and writers of the Celtic Revival who were among these executed in the 1916 Rising.

Thomas Kettle

In his poem, To my Daughter Betty, A Gift From God,  Kettle leaves very little doubt as to his feelings and his fear that he would not survive the war. It is dated ‘In the field, before Guillemont, Somme, Sept. 4, 1916’. He was killed in the battlefield in Ginchy four days later.

So here, while the mad guns curse overhead


And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,


Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead


Died not for flag, nor King nor Emperor 


But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,


And for the secret Scripture of the poor.

In a letter to his brother Kettle wrote,
“I hope to come back. If not, I believe that to sleep here in the France I have loved is no harsh fate, and that so passing out into silence, I shall help towards the Irish settlement." 

Francis Ledwidge

It is a striking contrast that Ledwidge’s war poetry, inspired by his memories of the natural habitat of his native County Meath, still retains a pastoral flavour while all around him was 'the muddy ranks of war’.

The hedges are all drowned in green grass seas,
 

And bobbing poppies flare like Elmo's light,
 

While siren-like the pollen-stained bees
 

Drone in the clover depths. And up the height
 

The cuckoo's voice is hoarse and broke with joy.
 

And on the lowland crops the crows make raid,.

 Before his death, Ledwidge wrote to the poet, Katherine Tynan:
"If I survive the war I have great hopes of writing something that will live. If not, I trust to be remembered in my own land for one or two things which its long sorrow inspired." 

He is, in fact, well remembered for his poem written after the execution of his friend Thomas McDonagh;

He shall not hear the bittern cry


In the wild sky, where he is lain,

Ledwidge was killed by an artillery shell at Ypres in 1917 and is buried in the cemetery at Artillery Wood at Boesinghe.

Kettle and Ledwidge have left behind a powerful testimony of their wartime experience as Irish nationalists in the British army. They speak to us on behalf of the many for whom we have no written record. They saw themselves engaged in a fight in Ireland's name and for Ireland's cause.

It is perhaps not wholly surprising that the writings of Kettle and Ledwidge have been overlooked. In Ireland. Their sacrifice was long overshadowed in modern Irish history which mainly dwelt on the General Post Office in 1916 rather than the Western Front.

Another interesting contrast is to be found in the literary responses from W.B. Yeats, who was not involved in military action yet he defines this particular period in Irish history and reflects on the dilemma of Irish men fighting in the British Army.

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate

Those that I guard I do not love.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© Rose Morris

Rose Morris was born near Dungannon, in Co. Tyrone. Having retired from a career in Art and Design Education in Greater Manchester she now spends more time pursuing her creative interests and involvement in community projects in Manchester and County Tyrone.
She co-founded the Manchester Irish Writers group with Alrene Hughes in 1994.
Her continued involvement and sharing within that group has greatly enhanced the development of her own writing.
Her short stories, monologues and poetry have been included in the Manchester Irish Writers’ published collections; The End of the Rodden, The Retting Dam, Stone of the Heart, Drawing Breath and Changing Skies.

To find out more about MIW's Somme 100 Commemoration, please click here.

July 1st 1916: Poem for Somme 100

By Bridie Breen

A poem to mark the centenary of the battle of the Somme, 100 years ago today.

JULY 1ST 1916

The lads practised the names 

of French townlands,

while holding fort in trenches

in Thiepval Wood.

Laughed in camaraderie, 

as they accented Chantilly.

Dreamt of Parisienne ladies

bedecked in fancy hats and lacy attire.

Imagined steamy fetlocks,

cigar smoke and winning bets.

But no horses ran on the racecourse,

in the Battle of the Somme.

Commanders commanded

and the war raged on.

Kitchener’s finger had pointed to all.

The young hearts of a nation swelled

as Volunteer armies forged.

Neighbours steeled by patriotic fervour,

Wished to serve alongside each other.

Childhood friends bonded forever 

as brothers in arms. 

Lord Derby called them a Battalion of Pals.

Regiments gathered in one week flat

from farmland and village,

they went together en masse

to stand tall or fall down,

in the name of their God, 

King and country.

Town and City names 

were bore with pride.

Enlisted not conscripted,

heading for the Western Front.

A cloudless sky, as dawn broke into July.

Mist laden Rivers Ancre and Somme

spoke of sunny possibilities to 

Generals in Chateau’s

While helmeted young men

Signed themselves with a cross

Kissed items of sentiment

Wrote hurried letters to mothers 

and sweethearts.

Looked to each other, 

nodded to bugle horn, then went over the top.

If war had not been the reason

a race perhaps or a restful relax.

No such luck as they waded

 in mucky rat filled pits.

Cannon fodder, 

so far away from home.

In that French valley of death 

machine gun fire showered 

from the sky

Wires had been cut in time,

a vain hope held for deadly attack.

Efforts failed to prise Beaucourt 

from German grasp

Haig and Joffre’s great plans met mishap

Concrete dugouts, withstood well

bombarding shells.

German trenches, stayed intact.

Bodies lay where they fell.

A mound for comrades to climb across,

caused much delay and further loss.

A hill too high to make advance

Boys were forced to become men

on that Gommecourt spot.

Lieutenant Cather’s gallantry

saved some wounded men 

Little chance himself of surviving

such a carnival of hell.

Nine Victoria crosses

awarded on that first Somme day

Six died in selfless sacrifice

Three lived to wear the medal

and relive the deed to their end

A cemetery now stands where once 

many thousands plodded

then dropped as stones

in the Big Push, onto No Man’s land.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Text © Bridie Breen

Bridie Breen has been a member of Manchester Irish Writers for quite a few years. Although her first love is poetry, she writes on all topics. She has contributed to the group’s publications “Stones of the Heart” and “Changing Skies”. Her Changing Skies piece is available to download as a voice over. She regularly performs at the group’s events. She has had successful collaborations with New Attitude theatre and Emerge theatre in the past and more recently performed with Athlone Poetry in the Park group. She has taken her love of poetry to local cafe settings. She enjoys writing short scripts too. Her wish is to have a poetry anthology published. In the meantime, she’ll be trying out at performance style poetry venues to showcase new work in the coming months.

To find out more about MIW's Somme 100 Commemoration, please click here.