Three new poems just published & reflection on a busy October

October has been frantically full, from start to finish, but also highly enjoyable. I'm typing this on the last day of the month - Halloween - as I get ready to submit student marks and before we carve our massive pumpkin after lunch. We still have a few final spooky decorations to festoon in the sitting room too. I can hardly believe it's a full month since renowned traditional Irish fiddler, Eileen O'Brien and I performed our commissioned work, 'Sionann: a suite' for its world premiere at the 2022 Dromineer Literary Festival in Nenagh Castle on Saturday, 1st October. I didn't get a spare moment to write about our project at the time, so it is a pleasure to reflect back on that occasion now and I'm delighted to share a few photos from the event, taken by talented photographer, Odhran Duchie.

Having both grown up on the banks of the river Shannon, in Dromineer and Carrick-on-Shannon respectively, Eileen and I created a suite in four movements and words that integrates an air, planxty, slip jig and reel as the river gracefully rises and flows toward Lough Derg and its estuary. Filled with fluvial resonances, 'The Shannon Suite' is our lyrical exploration of our topographic heritage. We set my poem 'I am Sionann' (available to read here) to an original score and performed it live on harp and fiddle. During our recital, we also celebrated the 230th anniversary of the famous 'last gathering of the harpers' at the 1792 Belfast Harp Festival, which continues to inspire my writing (listen to my piece for RTE Radio 1's Sunday Miscellany during August here). It was at this historic event that Edward Bunting transcribed many well known airs, preserving much Irish music for posterity. Eileen and I played a mix of traditional airs that were performed by the 1792 harpers and passed on to Bunting to notate, including 'Carolan's Concerto', collected from Arthur O'Neill. We were thrilled with the audience response to our performance and our new suite - we got a standing ovation and many compliments after. You can enjoy more photos from the event and from many of the other memorable events of the festival at their gallery here. Congratulations to Chairperson, Geraldine McNulty, to Geraldine Cronin and to all the festival team on another super banquet of words and music and thank you again for bringing Eileen and I together for this highly enjoyable collaboration. During October, three more new poems of mine were published. Firstly my sonnet, 'Your Old Letters' features in Romance Options, the sparkling new anthology of love poems edited by Joe Woods and Leanne Quinn and published by Dedalus Press. More recently, during the past week, my poem 'I am Hawthorn' was featured on The Milk House, edited by Ryan Dennis. Lastly, my sonnet 'Anxiety of Influence' has just come out in Issue 7 of the ever-fresh Drawn to the Light, edited and published by the indefatigable Orla Fay and freely available to download here. Happy Halloween, happy reading and I hope you enjoy the poems!