HAPPY FATHER’S DAY TO ALL DADS OF BOYS AND GIRLS, MEN AND WOMEN NOT FORGETTING THE FATHERS OF ‘FUR BABIES’, ALL THE ANIMALS THAT MAKE OUR LIVES SUCH A JOY. THEY ARE PART OF THE FAMILY TOO.
DUP, GB NEWS, BBC, ITN, EUROS, POOTS AND THE GOOD NEWS? CRISTIAN ERIKSEN IS OUT OF HOSPITAL AND LOOKING GOOD.
THE FOOTBALL HAS BEEN BORING AND NEWS OF THE COVID VARIANT FRIGHTENING. FREEDOM IS ILLUSIVE AND EVERYTHING IS GOING UP IN PRICE. APART FROM THAT TO WAKEN UP IN THE MORNING IS A BLESSING.
THE BELFAST BOYS
Last week I was delving into the Facebook site, Images and Memories of Northern Ireland. This ‘album’ of photographs and comments is the brainchild of two men, born and brought up on the Falls Road in Belfast, who emigrated to Ontario Canada in the early 1970s. They say you can take the boy out of Belfast but you can never take Belfast out of the boy and certainly Jim and Larry Cullen have never been able to forget their home city. Their reminiscences were vivid and important and eventually they hit on an idea, to put their memories down on a Facebook page and open it to the public.
On June 26th 2018 they went ‘live’.
It wasn’t long before people were looking at the album, a sort of club emerged and people from all over the world began submitting their own material and to date there are almost 48,000 members and growing. The photos are varied, Student’s Day 1935 taken from the roof of the City Hall, sculptor Rosamund Praeger working on the pillar of Wisdom in St. Anne’s Cathedral 1928, RMS Olympic photographed in 1911 from the Waterworks in Belfast, even a tiny fairy captured in the Glens of Antrim. There are pictures of school classes, factory workers, football and cricket teams and family groups. There’s something for everyone. A picture of my old school promoted a huge number of comments, friends became reunited, teachers discussed! For years I tried to find out the name of the head of Skegoneill school in the early 1900s, within minutes someone told me.
There Are Rules
Entries must be from or about NI pre 2000 giving as much detail as possible, Troubles related posting are not allowed nor politics or Covid 19 and no bad language.
“We just want people to enjoy the images and the memories. The rules mean members know what to expect, it’s purely the joy of sharing photos some very historic, others from family albums but all reflecting a unique record of Northern Ireland life.
“People started posting all sorts of photos which really jogged memories, even a simple image of children swinging round a lamppost got a great response. You have to remember that back in the day a lot of families had a little Box Brownie camera to record family events but they didn’t take many photos of houses and churches so it’s really great to see so many historical pictures of buildings being posted, everything is there from horse drawn trams to the linen warehouse which was on the site of todays Belfast City Hall.”
Lots of people comment that they are learning new things about their homeland and how families are renewing contact with each other. . “We had some complaints that posting personal photos was taking away from the historical aspect so I set up a poll asking if these should be allowed. The majority said yes and so the site has now evolved into what it is today.”
Worldwide Interest
Over 40,000 members in the UK, 1,328 in Australia even 67 in South Africa and 54 in the Isle of Man. In Northern Ireland the figure is about 25,000, most popular with 55 to 65+ age group.
I suggested that with such a volume of entries pinging into their inbox they must be watching their computers every minute of every day. 73 year old Larry told me they do try and keep on top of every contribution.
“I’m usually up at 4 a.m. to have a look and spend time during the day just keeping a wee eye on things, it never stops by hey Anne, it keeps me busy.”
Having worked for the local Transport Department for five years in the late 60s and early 70s, Larry has an interest in transportation. Today he runs a special History of Transport in Northern Ireland page with 2,600 members. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/351879488667696) so between them the Cullen brothers have all points of the Northern Ireland compass covered!
Some photographs from the site will give you an idea of the width and depth of content, thank you to everyone who have shared their imagines and memories.
CELEBRATING A LOCAL POET AND HIS VERSE
I was recently invited to a unique event which turned out to be a little jewel in Belfast’s crown. We do thing well here, care and consideration, attention to detail and superb content. So it was at Holy Family Church on the Limestone Road earlier this month. A small audience was delighted to hear five poems by the late Pádraic Fiacc set to the especially crafted music of composer and organist Liam Friel each sung by soprano Sheelagh Greer, accompanied by clarinetist Gillian McCutcheon and pianist Ruth McGinley.
Fiacc’s verse is fascinating as was the man himself. I met him ten years before his death in 2019. I recall he had a beguiling smile and a twinkle in his eye.
He told me of the time he and his mother and brothers arrived in New York to join his father, times were hard, lives were devastated in 1929 with the Wall Street Crash and the resulting Great Depression. “It was a terrible time” he said, “people were committing suicide, many were jumping from windows and when we had to let our maid Blanch go, she took her own life.” Although it was considered a great honour that he was robbed by Legs Diamond, his father sank into a deep depression and began drinking but the boy spoke of his mother in loving and lyrical words: “I only knew the beauty of this woman and fragrance of her perfume as she bent over to kiss me goodnight.”
Much of the responsibility fell on his young shoulders but he kept up with his school work and began winning prizes for his poems many of them published. He graduated in 1941 with the Best Citizen award.
In those days he was Patrick Joseph O’Connor but after a life of adventure he became the much respected poet Pádraic Fiacc meaning ‘raven’ reflecting his love of nature and especially birds.
Liam introduced each piece beginning with ‘The Boy And The Geese’, the poet’s self analysis, with Ruth McGinley skilfully reflecting the flight of the birds on piano, at other times Gillian McCutcheon teased her clarinet into bird song.
The swans rise up with their wings in day
And they fly to the sky like the clouds away.
Yet with all their beauty and grace and might
I would rather have geese for their less-smooth flight.
I would rather have geese for they’re ugly like me
And because they are ugly, as ugly can be
I would rather have geese for their mystery.
I remember the old man playing the saw at the City Hall so ‘Man Alive’ brought back memories. The poem tells of a one legged musician who has nothing to see, nothing to say but is content in his own world making music with a saw and a bow. As she sang the words Sheelagh Greer’s voice seemed to catch the colours of the stained glass window as it soared to the high roof of Holy Family. The poem ends:
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Am some one
And I am here
Making music.
Everyday I hear a cry of despair
A voice of the defeated
As they drop pennies into my cap.
Everyday I hear my own self
Making music.
It’s not fair to pick verses here and there as each poem flows building to the end point, but I hope this will introduce you to the language of Fiacc if you don’t already know of it. I glad to say it’s hoped to stage this recital again when Covid allows.
Half way through the 50 minute programme, Liam introduced ‘Alive Alive O’, which shows the poet’s sense of humour, maybe even his own experience: “The weighty funeral ceremony for an unknown man, being celebrated by the stern priest,” says Liam, adding: “With the playful antics of an altar boy who disappears and playfully explores the world by climbing an apple tree.
“‘Tenth Century Invasion’ brings the reader back to the great monastic scribes copying the gospels into masterful manuscripts, also writing more spontaneous scribblings in the margins.” Again the lyrical writing:
Doves beat their wings
Against their breasts
Bloodying their wings
Bloodying their breasts …
Bells ring throughout the book
At the bottom of the lough
Gold running over the
Ruined page
Drowned
Emerald and lilac ink
From the song written in
The shaft of the sun
In the moment on the
Margin
Never to be sung”.
Much of Fiacc’s later work concerns The Troubles. In his book SEA Sixty Years Of Poetry selected by Michael McKernon, in the section Conflict, such titles as Elegy For A ‘Fenian Get’, More Terrorists, Enemy. Encounter, The British Connection, and Victory On Ship Street –
A bomb-blasted pub!
Another blow struck
For our very own corner
On Devil’s Island …
Stabbed a thousand
Times by flying glass
Two wee girls in
Hallowe’en dress
burnt
To death as witches!
His friend and the custodian of his writings McKernon has commented;
“People have said Fiacc saw an opportunity for self-aggrandisement and self-promotion when he wrote poems about the Troubles but those critics missed the sensitive, empathetic heart of Pádraic Fiacc with people undergoing trauma. He had empathy for soldiers and for civilians, for policemen, for everyone who was heard.”
He added: ”He wrote the biggest body of work about the conflict and suffered the traumatic situation of being ostracised by the official arts scene, although he had a group of close friends who supported him.”
At the moment Michael is writing Fiacc’s life story and it will be well worth the reading as is his selection of the poet’s work in the book SEA published by Multi Media Heritage Press.
