The Journal
Shed
David
Holiday that changed my life
Granny
She was 93 and I think, by now, 99 people came from her.
One woman in an armchair, in an old vernacular farmhouse, by a lake, in a borderland in Ireland who drew the world into her like a hug.
I can feel the texture, and smell the smell of her fadge bread with hunks of butter melting into it.
I can hear her wee mutter of prayers and the wet kiss on my cheek when I arrive at the house.
I can see her frown, in wondering who is there, become a big smile, as she sees me bring my little girl to meet her.
I remember the holographic holy pictures at the top of the hall that would have me shaking in fear going up the stairs to the bathroom.
I remember sneaking into the good back room and wanting to have that peacock sofa in my life every day.
I remember how much she loved my hats and handbags and coats and always tried them on.
I remember the photos on the wall and the wee cupboard underneath them and how I thought it housed a magic creature.
I remember finding an intricate, tiny key in the byre, and she told me to go and look for the box it opened, for it belonged to the faeries, and I remember making it my life’s mission to find that box. I remember losing the key and crying my heart out.
I remember going to Granny’s in uncle Hugh’s car every Sunday with the reams of us kids packed in to the small space with not a seat belt between us, singing ‘Molly Malone’, ‘I Never Will Marry’ and ‘Mary From Dungloe’.
I remember sitting on Granny’s knee and being told to sing ‘Sean South’ I could never remember the words.
I remember bringing my guitar to her and singing soft Irish love songs and seeing her face go somewhere else.
I remember her telling me how she was looking forward to seeing Paddy again.
The Iliad Short
Paris goes out with the beautiful Helen,Menelaus's temper keeps a swellin'Causing a great big war in troyAll cause of the prissy Priam's boy. Then Achilles goes on the rampage Achaean forces to enslave'til Agamemnon steals BriseisAnd his loyalty disappears. The greeks...
Lovely Lough Erne
Lovely Lough Erne, Oil On Canvas, 2003, Helen McNulty
David at the Locke
David at the Locke by Helen McNulty Watercolour on Paper 2014
Lovely Lough Melvin
Painting of Lough Melvin Fishermen
The Unfinished …
down
Sinking into the wave an inch from earth
Drowning in a shallow hypnosis
Rippling footsteps disintegrate the built world
Leaving a fractured trace of reality in its wake
Rain falls in perfect circles and there is the outline of my eye
As big as the sun
As I spy.
The Little One Said…
Memory makes a fool of me. I think I remember it, the many sisters in one bed, but I don’t remember anything at all. I don’t remember my childhood. I see pictures in Mammy’s photo albums. I go to that room in the house where we grew up and I try to recall something...
The Black Hat
Pomme, Self Portrait, Oil on Board, 75 x 75cm 2010 The Black Hat Empyrean Heights lay underneath his black felt hat, hiding deceptive black eyes. Lucifer was once an angel and if he were a real thing, he’d stride through cobble streets just like yer one, playing music...
Venus Sleeping
Venus Sleeping | 2020 | Watercolour on Paper | 10 x 14cm -- - Bushwhacking. —— —— 1/ Even the bracken / bricks it / in this bog. / / Tiny tufts of flax / Bow down the road / Plaques blaze the old names of townlands / Like gravestones. / / Do you remember / the time we...
Kitchen Windowsill
Kitchen Windowsill | April 2020 | Acrylic and Gouache on Paper | 10 x 14cm
The Dusty Bluebells – Children’s Playground Song and Dance.
Notre Dame
A week before Easter is a fitting time for a religious catastrophe. On Monday night the 15th April in the year of our lord 2019, Our Lady, Notre Dame ignited into flame shortly before 7pm in the evening. The epicentre was the roof of the cathedral. The fire was...
City Faeries
City Faeries, Oil on Canvas, 100cm x 100cm, 2003 Architect, Floppy Disk, Temple Bar Cobbles shone, little tiny bottle caps embedded themselves into the putty cracks between the stones and boy did they glisten among the fag ends, bits of yellow polysterene and pigeon...
Factory
Over the road there are women, sewing, visible through the open door. It is lunch time, they are still working. Yesterday when I peeped over on the hot afternoon, they were in there with the door closed, windows boarded up, but I could hear the drilling of the presser...
A Message in a Small Thing.
Drumskinny (from Irish Droim Scine, meaning 'ridge of the knife/edge') I I went down to the river where my phone repeatedly beeped in my pocket: 'Welcome to the United Kingdom". Another message, on the other side of Europe, saying that I was now safely home. Friendly...
Oh to be Compost
The Weaving Song (Bagpuss)
Lyrics of The Weaving Song The Weaving Song. I’m a weaver, a master weaver,I’ve got a loom where the best cloth's made.Plain cloth, twill, brocade or satin,I’m the master of my trade.Shed the warp and swing the shuttle,Beat the reed, the weft is laid. I can wind a...
Address
Wicklow Mountains, Ireland