An Old Gate
This gate is a kind of folly. You can see it on the John B. Keane Road near the Ballygologue Crossroads. It is beside a back lane into Ballygologue. It serves no purpose except to remind us that this was once the countryside and this was a gate into a field.
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John B. Keane Road in March 2020
Cahirdown in lockdown
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St. Michael's extension
This is the newly built extension to St. Michael's College. It's quiet and deserted now but will see teenage boys enjoy its facilities in the not too distant future.
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Listowel ICA in St. Patrick's Day Parades
(Photos provided by Máire MacMahon)
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The Healing Hand of Nature
(photos from Eamon Ó Murchú taken in March 2020 before the lockdown)
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A Poem from John McGrath
Missing the Last Waltz
My mother wears her bitterness
Like a dark shawl tonight.
Turf-smoke curls about her smoke-grey hair.
'Your father had two left feet,' she spits
Grasping the tongs with blue-veined fingers,
She pokes the fire to coax the dying flames.
'I should have married a dancer,' she sighs
And now her eyes are filled
With the hornpipes of memory
As the ghosts of a thousand hopefuls
Swirl her round the room.
'O, how we loved to dance.'
We lose her for a moment
In the ashes of lost chances,
Until once more the fading embers flicker.
'We could have had our pick,
Kathleen and me.'
Twin heartbreakers in pleated dresses.
They left the dancers standing,
Dashing down Oxford Road
For the last train home,
Missing the last waltz.
John McGrath
