Áras an Phiarsaigh

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Family Support

Mary Sobieralski and her lovely grandaughter helping to sell books at Kerry Literary Festival.

Me and Bobby Cogan after he won the Mens’ Doubles Division 1 and 2 competition at Lakewood Tennis Club’s Open.

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Just a Thought

My last week’s Thoughts are on the Diocese of Kerry website

Just a Thought

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OVER ENTHUSIASTIC VOLUNTEERS.

 By Mattie Lennon.

  The prestigious   Listowel Writers’ Week 2025,  had  one of its outstanding events on May 30. It  was, “ Poetry: Celebrating the Poetry of Paul Durkan-An Evening of Music and Poems to mark Paul’s eightieth birthday and the publication  of Paul Durcan 80 at 80.” Unfortunately Paul didn’t live to see it, he died on May 17th

       There is a tradition, among the good people of Ringsend, of gathering at a funeral procession to carry the coffin over the hump-backed bridge over the River Dodder just before the village. Needless to say at the funeral of one of our greatest poets the Ringsend people turned out in their droves to help the bereaved to, “carry Paul over the bridge.”

   Prolific Irish Times journalist Frank McNally treated his readers to a story from some years ago.  The volunteers overdid their enthusiasm for the tradition.  They stopped a hearse, with three limousines behind it, at the bottom of the bridge and immediately launched into the routine of organising each other to carry the coffin into Ringsend until the driver of the hearse intervened. “Lads, lads stop,”  he said, “This funeral is going to F…ing Bray.”

  What did Paul think of the afterlife? I’m  sure we can glean something from one of his poems.

Staring Out the Window Three Weeks After His Death.

Staring Out the Window Three Weeks After His Death

On the last day of his life as he lay comatose in the hospital bed

I saw that his soul was a hare which was poised In the long grass of his body, ears pricked

It sprang toward me and halted and I wondered if it

Could hear me breathing

Or if it could smell my own fear which was,

Could he but have known it, greater than his

For plainly he was a just and playful man

And just and playful men are as brave as they are rare.

Then his cancer-eroded body appeared to shudder

As if a gust of wind blew through the long grass

And the hare of his soul made a U-turn

And began bounding away from me

Until it disappeared from sight into a dark wood

And I thought – that is the end of that, I will not be seeing him again.

He died in front of me; no one else was in the room.

My eyes teemed with tears; I could not damp them down.

I stood up to walk around his bed

Only to catch sight again of the hare of his soul

Springing out of the wood into a beachy cove of sunlight

And I thought – yes, that’s how it is going to be from now on:

The hare of his soul always there, when I least expect it;

Popping up out of nowhere, sitting still. 

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Blessing the Herd

Photo by Elizabeth Ahern

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Kerry Women in Literature

Here are three of the writers featured in KWM’s new exhibition.

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Shared On Line

An old photo of The Castle Hotel Ballybunion

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KDYS

The ramped entrance to KDYS Listowel

It’s Pride month.

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A Fact

Black cats are considered lucky in Ireland and the U.K but in the U.S.A. it’s white cats that are the lucky ones.

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