I will not write a lengthy article in the hope that I will not be censored in certain Irish quarters like Indy media Ireland for example(What a sick joke, Indymedia Ireland my with a BBC logo and a brit agenda) perhaps this can serve discussion purposes. I just wish to state from Child abuse, Child rape to emigration, Ireland has failed so many of its children and youth. Whilst the British Empire and remnants of the Roman Empire are responsible for a lot of it, the general heartless response of the community to hardship in it midst, has a lot to answer for. Right now personally, post the Child Abuse Commission report and L'Adamsgate I am really angry with my own country.
A few brave genuine people have shouldered a liberation effort in Ireland for so long and been abused by their own. Catholic Ireland has been mostly opportunistic in its approach to its problems many self-inflicted and we would have been liberated decades ago, were it not for our own duplicity and lack of solidarity.
I have spent a large part of my life travelling and being an activist, always proud of my irish origins, particularly as a country that generally was popular, without a history of colonial aggression. I now find my sadness with recent revelations in Ireland turning to extreme anger and shame, with our population's general non-caring attitude to such rampant horrific crime in its midst.
Ireland is beginning to appear very similar to Israel, who also has a horrific holocaust past, forgotten where it has come from and become an indiscriminate abuser itself. Right now I am ashamed, very sad and very angry at Ireland in general.
Below is the a link to todays Sunday tribune articles.
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2010/jan/24/looking-back-gerry-adams-was-buttering-me-up-in-th/
A few brave genuine people have shouldered a liberation effort in Ireland for so long and been abused by their own. Catholic Ireland has been mostly opportunistic in its approach to its problems many self-inflicted and we would have been liberated decades ago, were it not for our own duplicity and lack of solidarity.
I have spent a large part of my life travelling and being an activist, always proud of my irish origins, particularly as a country that generally was popular, without a history of colonial aggression. I now find my sadness with recent revelations in Ireland turning to extreme anger and shame, with our population's general non-caring attitude to such rampant horrific crime in its midst.
Ireland is beginning to appear very similar to Israel, who also has a horrific holocaust past, forgotten where it has come from and become an indiscriminate abuser itself. Right now I am ashamed, very sad and very angry at Ireland in general.
Below is the a link to todays Sunday tribune articles.
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2010/jan/24/looking-back-gerry-adams-was-buttering-me-up-in-th/
My Lagan Love
My Lagan Love
Seosamh MacCathmhaoil
Where Lagan stream sings lullaby
There blows a lily fair
The twilight gleam is in her eye
The night is on her hair
And like a love-sick lennan-shee
She has my heart in thrall
Nor life I owe nor liberty
For love is lord of all.
Her father sails a running-barge
'Twixt Leamh-beag and The Druim;
And on the lonely river-marge
She clears his hearth for him.
When she was only fairy-high
Her gentle mother died;
But dew-Love keeps her memory
Green on the Lagan side.
And often when the beetle's horn
Hath lulled the eve to sleep
I steal unto her shieling lorn
And thru the dooring peep.
There on the cricket's singing stone,
She spares the bogwood fire,
And hums in sad sweet undertone
The songs of heart's desire
Her welcome, like her love for me,
Is from her heart within:
Her warm kiss is felicity
That knows no taint of sin.
And, when I stir my foot to go,
'Tis leaving Love and light
To feel the wind of longing blow
From out the dark of night.
Where Lagan stream sings lullaby
There blows a lily fair
The twilight gleam is in her eye
The night is on her hair
And like a love-sick lennan-shee
She has my heart in thrall
Nor life I owe nor liberty
For love is lord of all.
In Scottish Gaelic a "leannan-sidhe" is a Faery Lover. This type of Faery Lover
often takes a person's love and then leaves. He or she goes back where they came
from leaving the human pining for their lost love. The poor
mortals in the tales of leannan sidhe often died of sorrow.
The song was first published in "Songs of Uladh" in Belfast.
Hughes' preface says: "I made this collection while on holiday in
North Dun-na-n Gall in August of last year." "I got this from Proinseas mac Suibhne who played it for meon the fidil. He had it from his father Seaghan mac Suibhne. It was
sung to a ballad called the "Belfast Maid," now forgotten in Cill-mac-nEnain."
Lambeg is a village between Lisburn and Belfast and the Drum is the site of a
bridge across the river and the canal that was made beside it, which eventually
diverged from the river and entered Lough Neagh. There
for the sake of scansion! " - JM
To quote from Mary O'Hara's notes on this song, from her book "A Song For
Ireland", - "The leánan sídhe (fairy mistress) mentioned in the song is a
malicious figure who frequently crops up in Gaelic love stories. One could call
her the femme fatale of Gaelic folklore. She sought the love of men; if they
refused, she became their slave, but if they consented, they became her slaves
and could only escape by finding another to take their place. She fed off them
so her lovers gradually wasted away - a common enough theme in Gaelic medieval
poetry, which often saw love as a kind of sickness. Most Gaelic poets in the
past had their leanán sídhe to give them inspiration. This malignant fairy was
for them a sort of Gaelic muse. On the other hand, the crickets mentioned in the
song are a sign of good luck and their sound on the hearth a good omen. It was
the custom of newly-married couples about to set up home to bring crickets from
the hearths of their parents' house.
