We are wonderful here in Ireland for commemorating disasters. We celebrate them in great fashion. We're commemorating/celebrating 100 years since the torpeoding of the Lusitania at the moment. Next year it's the 100th anniversary of 1916, when we will commemorate/celebrate the loss of our heroes who died in the fight for Irish freedom. A few years ago we commerated/celebrated the loss of the Titanic. I hope i live to see the 200th anniversary of the Great famine in 2045.
I read a great poem recently by Desmond Egan.
Camera Settings - Camera Canon 70D, Lens Canon 17-55mm@17mm, exp 1/640sec, f5, ISO100
Camera Settings - Camera Canon 70D, Lens Canon 17-55@17mm, exp 1/320sec, f8, ISO 100
Camera Settings - Camera Canon 70D, Lens Canon 17-55mm@17mm, exp 1/320sec, f5, ISO 100
Camera Settings - Camera Canon 70D, Lens Canon 17-55mm@33mm, exp 1/320sec, f5, ISO 100
Camera Settings - Camera Canon 70D, Lens 17-55mm@17mm, exp 1/200sec, f9, ISO 100
Camera settings - Camera Canon 70D, Lens Canon 17-55mm@17mm, exp 1/200sec, f9, ISO 100
Camera Settings - Camera Canon 70D, Lens Canon 17-55mm@17mm, exp 1/200sec, f3.5, ISO 100
I read a great poem recently by Desmond Egan.
Famine, a sequence (Desmond Egan)
the stink of famine
hangs in the bushes still
in the sad celtic hedges
you can catch it
down the line of our landscape
get its taste on every meal
listen
there is famine in our music
famine behind our faces
it is only a field away
has made us all immigrants
guilty for having survived
has separated us from language
cut us from our culture
built blocks around belief
left us on our own
ashamed to be seen
walking out beauty so
honoured by our ancestors
but fostered now to peasants
the drivers of motorway diggers
unearthing bones by accident
under the disappearing hills
hangs in the bushes still
in the sad celtic hedges
you can catch it
down the line of our landscape
get its taste on every meal
listen
there is famine in our music
famine behind our faces
it is only a field away
has made us all immigrants
guilty for having survived
has separated us from language
cut us from our culture
built blocks around belief
left us on our own
ashamed to be seen
walking out beauty so
honoured by our ancestors
but fostered now to peasants
the drivers of motorway diggers
unearthing bones by accident
under the disappearing hills
We love doom and gloom, we thrive on it. At my daughter's wedding recently we had the customary sing song which started approx 3am. Nearly every song that was sung was about a death, or a broken heart. Himself sang A Weila Weila Waila, listen to it here. You will be absolutely horrified. It's about a mother who kills her child with a pen knife. It was categorised in the 1800's as a childs nursery rhyme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuUanDlD9vg
I have to admit to be a lover of the Ballads about our heroes though, I know the words of the ballad of Wolfe Tone, Michael Collins, James Connolly, Terence Mc Swiney (Shall my soul pass through old Ireland), James Plunkett (Grace) and a few more, i sing them to myself all the time so i won't forget the words. I love the sheer poetry of them without hanging on to the history of them, because if we hang on we are never free.
These photographs were taken in a famine graveyard in Coachford, Co Cork known as Magourney Cemetry. A large stone marks the mass grave where the famine victims were buried and some smaller ones jutting out at different angles acknowledge the fact that there are several un-named bodies there. An Gorta Mór inscribed on the stone is "The Great Famine" in Irish.
Camera Settings - Camera Canon 70D, Lens Canon 17-55mm@17mm, exp 1/200sec, f3.5, ISO 100
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