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    Flaghopping and Other Poems
    Flaghopping and Other Poems
    Flaghopping and Other Poems
    Ebook153 pages54 minutes

    Flaghopping and Other Poems

    By Michael Pattwell

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    The late Bryan McMahon in his short story, The Crossing, said, through one of his characters, that writing is a compulsive venting of the fermenting cask of my passion. I have always admired McMahon anyway but I have never found anything that so expertly defines writing. Many of my poems in this book were written at times in my life over the last twenty years when my head was literally exploding with feelings of one kind or another, from intense love through to dejection and near despair. If the person who casually takes up this book takes the time to read the poems within I think this will become very obvious. Starting with my Inis Mein poems right through to poems about family and relationships at the end of the book I am only too well aware that I have probably exposed more of myself than many would care to do. I think I have a reputation for direct, no nonsense, plain talking and I believe I have done that in this, my first, collection. One thing that I hope does come through is my huge love and admiration for my late wife, Mairad, who passed away since these poems were first published, for my parents, now sadly deceased also and for all of my children and grandchildren.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse UK
    Release dateDec 17, 2014
    ISBN9781496998125
    Flaghopping and Other Poems
    Author

    Michael Pattwell

    MICHAEL PATTWELL was born in 1945 in Clonakilty, Co. Cork, Ireland. He has worked as a bakery worker, a Customs Officer a Court Clerk, a businessman and a lorry driver before he took up the study of law as a mature student in 1971 and qualified as a solicitor in 1976. He was appointed a judge of the District Court in 1990 and retired in 2011. He is also a woodturner and photographs of his work, as well as newer poems, can be seen on his website: www.michaelpattwell.com

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      Book preview

      Flaghopping and Other Poems - Michael Pattwell

      FLAGHOPPING

      And Other Poems

      Michael Pattwell

      28788.png

      AuthorHouse™ UK

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403   USA

      www.authorhouse.co.uk

      Phone: 0800.197.4150

      © 2014 Michael Pattwell. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      Published by AuthorHouse    12/11/2014

      ISBN: 978-1-4969-9811-8 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4969-9812-5 (e)

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

      and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Originally Published by Original Writing Ltd., Dublin. January, 2011

      CONTENTS

      For Mairéad, my beloved wife, who, to my deepest regret and everlasting sorrow, passed away in 2013, two and a half years after this was first published. She believed enough in me to keep reminding me that I should publish my poems. During our wonderful years together she was my editor, advisor, critic, chief supporter and sometimes my inspiration. I miss her every hour of every day and I can never thank her enough.

      It is also for my parents who both feature in several of the poems. I miss you both.

      I cannot forget the many people, including my children, who have inspired me to write poems to, for or about them. Thank you.

      Finally I want to thank all the members of my Writers Group in Ballincollig; in particular, the facilitator, Bernadette Leach. Without all of you and the discipline of our weekly get-togethers many of my poems would never have been written.

      FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION

      Michael and I are connected through marriage — Annie Pattwell, his aunt, married my uncle Christy McCarthy way back in the nineteen fifties. They were both emigrants to London and they had a daughter, Paula McCarthy, who was sent home to be raised with our family in the north inner city of Dublin. Those childhood summers we were sent to stay with Paula’s relatives, John and Peggy, on their smallholding outside Tarbert, by the banks of the river Shannon. There were the golden humps of haystacks, there was the dark river music, there were the little fields and there was the extended family of Pattwells and rounds of visits.

      For us city children it was magic and terrifying in equal measure. At night by lamplight I read my way through the books in the cottage. The Tragic Story of the Colleen Bawn I read aloud to Paula by oil lamp within hearing of the river. It was too easy to imagine the ghost of the betrayed colleen, Ellen Hanley, turning and turning in the river’s roiling waters, and her desperate fate had us riveted and spooked in equal measure. Then there was the time we murdered the hens. Unwittingly. When we were left to clean out

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