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Unique Robert
Ballagh Moore Street Print
As regular readers of
this column know I have been involved for a very long time in the campaign to
protect and develop as a historic and cultural quarter the Moore St. Terrace
and its environs in Dublin. The entire terrace 10-25 Moore Street was occupied
by the evacuated GPO garrison at the end of Easter Week 1916. The developer -
Hammerson - wants to demolish much of the terrace.
The Moore St.
Preservation Trust, with the support of relatives of the 1916 leaders, is
working with a legal team to prepare a legal challenge should An Bord Pleanála
decide to grant Hammerson permission to knock down any part of this historic
terrace. All of this will involve significant costs. As part of the Trust’s
campaign to raise awareness, and to raise funding for any legal challenge, the
Moore Street Preservation Trust will tonight be launching a new image of
the last meeting of the Provisional Government following the Easter Rising in
1916 by the renowned Irish artist Robert Ballagh. The launch and presentation
of the print will take place in the Mansion House in Dublin at 7pm.
This exclusive limited
edition of 200 prints (60 by 60 cm) is individually signed and numbered by
Robert Ballagh on museum quality paper and printed with archival inks.
The scene depicted in
his painting captures the last meeting of the Provisional Government that took
place in Number 16 Moore Street following their retreat from the burning GPO.
It was there at this meeting attended by Pádraig Pearse, Seán Mac Diarmada,
Joseph Plunkett, Tom Clarke and a wounded James Connolly that the decision was
taken to surrender to the British forces. Also present at the meeting were
Volunteers Winifred Carney, Julia Grennan and Nurse Elizabeth O’Farrell who a short
time later accompanied Pearse when he presented the notice of surrender to the
British. The women of 1916 are rarely given their proper place in that
story. Robert Ballagh’s print redresses this through the inclusion of these
three republican activists who played a central role in those historic events.
This striking new
print entitled simply ‘HQ Moore Street 1916’ is being released for sale at Euro
150 or £150 per print. Each signed print is sure to become a valuable
collector’s piece. The print will be available this evening following
the launch at the Mansion House. It can be purchased through www.arasuichonghaile.com/moorestreet
I have my copy
ordered. I am confident that these unique prints by Bobby will go quickly.
You Are Never Alone With A Book.
I’m glad to say
I finished reading a few books over the last month so I will update you on them
over the next couple of weeks.
First off is The
Ghost Limb by Claire Mitchell. This is an intriguing read and Ms Mitchell is a
persuasive writer, gentle, witty and positive. She describes herself as an
alternative Protestant and Ghost Limb has a sub-title ‘Alternative Protestants
and the Spirit of 1798’. In this compelling book a group of these
citizens retrace the steps of the United Irishmen - and women- who worked for
the unity of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter over two hundred years ago as a
means to end the connection with England.
They trek across
graveyards and old churches, pubs and battlefield sites in County Antrim and
Down and in Belfast's back entries. They rediscover this part of their heritage
and explore why it has been misremembered or not remembered except by a
faithful few who reject the notion of Northern Protestants as a
monolithic right wing insular and anti progressive, anti Irish group. Northern
Protestants are not all like that they say. Not historically. Not now.
Ms Mitchell also
presents the vision of 1798 - of a rights based anti-sectarian equality
proofed society- as the democratic solution to our political problems. I
recommend this book to anyone trying to understand the dynamics of northern
society in this time of change. There is a lot of learning to be done by us
all. Making space to rediscover who we are is part of that. Claire
Mitchell’s book has made a mighty and positive contribution to that
necessary task.
The Ghost Limb is
published by www.beyondthepale.com
Michael Magee was one
of the guests at Scribes at The Rock during Féile An Phobail. He read from his
new novel Close To Home. Scribes is a Féile highlight, a creation of Danny
Morrison and now twenty-two-years old. Scribes not Danny. Michael Magee was
joined by Michelle Gallen reading Factory Girls and Paul Murray reading The Bee
Sting. More of these at another time. All in all another great event.
Well done, Danny. Belated apologies to the woman who appeared to be annoyed at
me bunking the queue to have my books signed. Mea culpa.
And well done Michael
Magee and the other Scribes’ readers. Close to Home is an in-your-face,
fast-paced graphic account of a twenty-year-old Sean and his mates and family
living in West Belfast and mired in poverty, addiction and trauma. Sean has
just returned from university in England but he is soon sucked back into the
life he had temporarily escaped from. His story is told by Michael Magee with
brutal honesty. Sean knows that a better life is possible but surviving the
daily challenges of existing on the edge of a community coming out of
conflict with multiple social and economic challenges threatens to drown
him in excesses of drug and alcohol binges and casual random violence. So
he struggles to survive and to readjust.
I read Close To Home
in two goes. I am undecided yet about whether Michael lets the reader
fully into Sean’s emotional responses to the definitive stages of his
transition. That element of the novel has stayed with me. I consider
it a good thing that I am unsure of this. I read Close To Home two weeks
ago and I am still puzzling over this part of it.
Undoubtedly, Close To
Home does convey the young man’s emotional sense of his community, of family,
particularly his relationship with his mother and his estranged father
and the multi-traumas endured by friends, workmates and his brother Anto. His
depiction of the people of West Belfast, or that part of us which is portrayed
in his novel, also rings true. Including his mother’s attitude to the
IRA. So a very fine novel indeed and one which will stay with you long after
you read it.
Close To Home is
Michael Magee’s debut novel and is published by Picador.
Walking with
my Mother
Our mother Annie
Hannaway – Annie Adams died on the 4th September 1992. Her spirit lives on in
the memory of our family and those who knew her. Here’s a little poem I wrote a
few years ago.
Walking with
my Mother
My mother died in
1992.
In 2007 I met her.
On the back road above
Cashelnagore.
The August sunshine
lit up
The scarlet fushia and
the montbretia
And the white of her
hair.
As I walked behind her
She picked wildflowers
From the ditches.
Then at a gap in the
hedge
She turned and smiled
at me.
‘Lá deas ata ann’ she
said.
‘It’s a nice day’.
I walked on.
Alone.
Wondering how this
could be.
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