Poems and other words

Bernadette Gallagher reading from The Risen Tree (Revival Press, 2024) at the Stables, Strokestown International Poetry Festival 2025. Photo credit: Trish Bennett

Sam Furlong & Eilish Martin, Macha Press also read as part of this event.

Mon 5^th May 21:43 2025… on returning home from the Strokestown International Poetry Festival Strokestown, County Roscommon.

The sun has now set. I caught the going down as I came over the hill from Cornagcat to our house. My legs were in pain from all the sitting in the driving pose. A little walk downhill to the dip and back again uphill. Checked on the plants in the glasshouse and gave them all a watering knowing that they were well tended by my love in my absence.

I enjoyed the few days away and the coming home to trees and birdsong.

I felt so well looked after – a guest poet amongst so many masters of the craft – a feeling of gratitude to the women who opened up pathways in their young days and to the men who supported them.

There were so many elements to the weekend. The poetry festival was bookended by Trish Bennett who lit the flame for the 2025 festival opening and Gerard Smyth who closed the curtains on the final event. A look at the well-designed programme names most of the voices of those who participated. One of the questions posed by Peter Sirr and still unanswered is whether anyone who is identified as a poet is still a poet when not in the process of writing a poem. And perhaps the answer is that it doesn’t matter what one is called…a person who sometimes writes poems is a person who sometimes writes poems.

One event which was particularly moving was the tribute to Merrily Harpur, recently deceased, who started the festival. All of the contributors to this event including Pat Compton and Shane Lynskey made those of us who hadn’t met Merrily feel as if we too had known her.

Jane Clarke announced the prize-winning poem of the 2025 Strokestown International Poetry Competition: ‘René Laennec Remembers the day he dreamt a stethoscope’ by Olga Dermott-Bond. Jane gave interesting insights into this and the other short listed poems which are all available to read at https://strokestownpoetryfest.ie/strokestown-international-poetry-prize-2025-shortlisted-poems/

Jane spoke words of encouragement to those writers of poems not chosen this time. She revealed that she herself submitted over the years to this competition and never had a poem selected.

Joe Woods, Director, was the perfect host, professional, kind and gentle, opening each event and gliding off stage to allow other voices to be heard.

The open mic in Comptons Bar on Friday night was a wonderful introduction to writers and musicians from the locality smoothly managed by Mike Snype & Ronan Turner.

It was a privilege being invited as a guest poet to read on Saturday at noon in the vaulted ceilings of the Stables. I enjoyed meeting and reading with Sam Furlong & Eilish Martin from Macha Press and was impressed, as others were, by the variety of the three readings. I very much appreciated the warmth from Ruth Carr & Natasha Cuddington.

Arlen House celebrates their 50^th year with the publication of Washing Windows V edited by Alan Hayes & Nuala O’Connor. There was a large number of contributors in attendance at the launch and some of these read their poems. Further launch and reading events are planned throughout the year.

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin launched the 99^th edition of Cyphers with readings by a number of contributors.

There was a feeling of camaraderie amongst all of the attendees. There was an easiness and great gentleness about the weekend. I enjoyed the ad hoc conversations.

Seeing familiar faces and meeting others for the first time was a pleasure.

It was a long journey from Cork and wanting to experience as many events as possible I decided to stay until Monday. That allowed me to book a tour of Strokestown House and to visit the Famine Museum and the gardens.

Although I have known the story of the famine, visiting the museum was an experience that touched me deeply. The famine pot grabbed my attention because we have owned for many years, a print by Mo Irwin of an almost full-size famine pot. Later when I arrived home and for the first time since I had left on Friday I glanced at the news on my phone. The image of children and adults holding aloft their bowls competing for any meagre ration being starved by those in power. Voices from our own famine past came to hold hands with those being starved in Gaza, in Sudan…and in places that don’t make the news.

We know from the past wars and genocides and man-made famines that the perpetrators will be secreted into the welcome arms of another state or sit it out in the ancestral homes of those who have been cleared from their land.

When things fall apart…

I feel sad when hours earlier I was walking and sitting amidst the beautiful walled garden and glasshouses for grape vine, fig, melon and apricot. I stepped down into a tool shed containing a firepit and chimney where I read about how a young boy would sleep here overnight to feed the fire to keep the heat going all night feeding warmth into exotic fruits. And I wonder did he survive the famine and what of his siblings, father and mother – did they die from starvation or on board a ship buried at sea or on the soil of a foreign land?

In Strokestown House a tunnel was constructed to hide the creators from the consumers.

Jim Callery has gifted us the story and artifacts from the time of Cromwell as seen from Strokestown. Strokestown House, Famine Museum & gardens is a special place and very much worth a leisurely visit.

Photo credit: Mike Snype

I was delighted to meet Jim and his wife Adeline. Jim was 90 years of age last year and walked from Strokestown to Dublin in the footsteps of 1,470 tenants who had to leave Strokestown Park in 1847 heading for the famine ships from Liverpool. Money raised from Jim’s Walk went to charities working with immigrants.

A sincere thanks to Joe Woods (who launched his poetry collection Veld Fires (Dedalus, 2024) at last year’s festival), and the committee of the Strokestown International Poetry Festival 2025 for inviting me as guest poet.

To paraphrase Umberto Eco ‘the writer does not narrate his life but reveals himself in his writing’.