The Belfast Pogrom: Some Observations

by Paul Muldoon

The shipyard workers are no lighter on their feet
than the linen workers who flock
to Ross’s Mill on Odessa Street

to wrangle a bed sheet
out of sullen flax.
The shipyard workers are no lighter on their feet

than this newly launched ship of the fleet
laying about it with its fluke.
The linen workers on Odessa Street

look to his nosebag for the mummy wheat
that may raise a horse-king from his cart-catafalque.
The shipyard workers are no lighter on their feet

than when they greet
the Catholics among them with a wrist-flick
of nuts and bolts. In Ross’s Mill on Odessa Street

the tradition of drinking whiskey neat
extends to the recent influx
of shipyard workers never lighter on their feet

than when they’re driven back by the heat
from a house they’ve torched. The black snowflakes
that settle on the linen workers of Odessa Street

summon quite bittersweet
memories of a Catholic boy recently flogged
by the shipyard workers no lighter on their feet

than the parakeet
on his shoulder. The boy’s back striped like the flag
flying over Ross’s Mill on Odessa Street.

When it comes to beating a retreat
through a mass of blood and brain-flecks
the shipyard workers are no lighter on their feet
than the linen workers of Odessa Street.

 

This is one of ten poems commissioned by UCD Library, Poetry Ireland, and Arts Council Northern Ireland as part of Poetry as Commemoration, a two-year initiative supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, under the Decade of Centenaries 2012-2023 programme.

The aim of Poetry as Commemoration is to encourage creative engagement with the material history of the Irish War of Independence & the Civil War.

Inspired by Facts & Figures of the Belfast Pogrom 1920-1922, a report compiled by G.B. Kenna (pseudonym for Fr John Hassan) at the request of Michael Collins.

It will be published in Grief’s Broken Brow, a limited fine press edition designed and produced by Jamie Murphy at The Salvage Press featuring original artwork by James EarleyGrief’s Broken Brow will be presented as a gift to 100 repositories providing a tangible record of the Decade of Centenaries and a legacy object for future generations. Poems are made available to the public via Poetry Jukeboxes, the Poetry as Commemoration website, and the Irish Poetry Reading Archive.