Historical Genes (Shame Between the Cracks)

by Noreen Moore Murphy Uí Laighin

(for all the 13, 15, 17+ year-olds who never got a chance to live)

Did I note lose you all carelessly
Off the carrier of my bicycle,
Like a brown paper package
Badly tied?

No.
You went out to fight their revolution
And THIS is what we are left with.

Reproduced with kind permission of the author. This poem was composed in Poetry as Commemoration workshops held at the Thomas MacDonagh Museum on 20th and 21st of September, 2023. The workshops were led by poet Thomas McCarthy.

Cover Image: ‘Photograph by W.D. Hogan of a group of Irish Free State Army soldiers sitting and reclining on the road, possibly near a check point’.
Collection: Desmond FitzGerald Photographs. Reference: P80/PH/63 . UCD Archives

Themes

1916 Rising , 1917 , 1918 , 1919 , 1920 , 1921 , 1922 , 1923 , Civil War , Death , English Language , Memory , Tipperary , Violence , War of Independence , Workshop Poem , Youth