Below us flows an endless white cloudfield
with occasional holes like tiny lavender lakes
like the brown, blue & silver bog lakes
in the half-drowned edges
of Connemara & Labrador
which have almost forgotten
the volcanoes that blew them apart.
Moya Cannon ‘From the Plane’
U.S. & Israel launch attacks on Iran. They can certainly inflict significant damage, but it is hard to see a US ground invasion to bring down the Iranian regime. Regime change probably entails US cajoling elements in the Iranian military to help topple the Ayatollahs.
www.rte.ie/news/2026/02...
Every cloud,even the smallest tuft,
drags its own shadow behind it,
on the skin of the silver-blue sea.
Foam-followed ships are white tadpoles.
They have forsaken,&seek out,
the primal embrace of harbours.
Families of nomads crossed here
before a great inundation,
which parted land masses
MCannon
The Thomas Francis Meagher Tricolour Celebration 178 is coming up next weekend, 6-8 March in #Waterford. Two days of talks and Meagher-related activities. Details below. I will give a talk on Saturday, 7 March on our national flag, its past, present & future. See you there.
meagherstricolour.com
U.S. & Israel launch attacks on Iran. They can certainly inflict significant damage, but it is hard to see a US ground invasion to bring down the Iranian regime. Regime change probably entails US cajoling elements in the Iranian military to help topple the Ayatollahs.
www.rte.ie/news/2026/02...
Every cloud,even the smallest tuft,
drags its own shadow behind it,
on the skin of the silver-blue sea.
Foam-followed ships are white tadpoles.
They have forsaken,&seek out,
the primal embrace of harbours.
Families of nomads crossed here
before a great inundation,
which parted land masses
MCannon
My interview with @newstalkfm.bsky.social Breakfast about US tariffs in light of last week’s developments.
www.newstalk.com/podcasts/hig...
‘Impact of tariff fiasco will take time to become clear’ @rte.ie
Yes, it will. If there needs to be fresh EU-US trade talks, expect them to be more difficult & for the EU to negotiate more robustly.
www.rte.ie/news/analysi...
Cover of my 2023 book on WB Yeats - Pilgrim Soul published by New Island Books.
The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, …There's something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road metal.
W.B. Yeats
The long list of 20 contenders for this year’s @dublinlitaward.bsky.social has just been announced. It has been a pleasure for me to be part of this year’s judging panel. We now have the difficult task of choosing a shortlist of 6 & then the ultimate winner. dublinliteraryaward.ie/features/new...
17.02.2026 10:00 — 👍 10 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
Having a dedicated chair of Irish History at #Cambridge will help future generations of British students acquire a deeper understanding of Irish history. Cambridge, which also hosts an annual Parnell Fellowship at #Magdalene College, is now well served for Irish studies. www.rte.ie/news/ireland...
20.02.2026 19:24 — 👍 22 🔁 8 💬 2 📌 0
We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.
W.B. #Yeats
📚 The Dublin Literary Award 2026 Longlist has been revealed!
This year’s longlist features 20 titles nominated by 26 libraries from around the world and includes novels by two Irish authors.
Explore the longlist here: https://dublinliteraryaward.ie/the-library/prize-years/2026/
The long list of 20 contenders for this year’s @dublinlitaward.bsky.social has just been announced. It has been a pleasure for me to be part of this year’s judging panel. We now have the difficult task of choosing a shortlist of 6 & then the ultimate winner. dublinliteraryaward.ie/features/new...
17.02.2026 10:00 — 👍 10 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0Free public lecture by Vona Groarke
16.02.2026 00:30 — 👍 14 🔁 6 💬 0 📌 0
Ireland Professor of #Poetry Vona Groarke will deliver her first public lecture at @tcddublin on 26 February - details below. It’s a free event. Vona is a fine poet. Her talk is sure to be interesting.
www.eventbrite.ie/e/vona-groar...
On the high slope behind the beach
with each withdrawing wave
a million million almost rounded stones
rush with a hoarse&frantic cheering
that now, at last, is their release:
&are rolled back in on the next wave;
not for a single moment
has there been…
silence amongst us,&peace,&rest
John F. Deane
The Irish Times view on the meeting of EU leaders: Decisive action is needed
Yes, the EU is facing into a more threatening economic & security environment & must learn to respond accordingly.
www.irishtimes.com/opinion/edit...
There are, perhaps, no accidents,
no coincidences.
When we stumble against people, books,
rare moments out of time,
these are illuminations —
like the hunter’s moon
that sails tonight in its high clouds,
casting light into our black harbour …
Moya Cannon
This is not a good time to be an immigrant in the US without a work visa or a green card. ICE has huge numbers in detention from all over the world. Our diplomats will be doing all in their power to secure the release of Irish people held by ICE. www.rte.ie/news/politic...
10.02.2026 14:23 — 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
I have never gone there but hear
Altnasheen unravelling on a page,
A creel of sound that I carry,
Laundered linen to sort through.
I listen to its music & know
The treadle trapped by a stone.
Near it, a mouth wide in silence,
The curved horn of a gramaphone.
Seán Dunne ‘Altnasheen’
You come in & we quickly leave behind
the thorny rose-gardens of our grown-up fights.
I smooth out the creases in your gentle face
I know I’ve often caused —
while you, keeping me from the shabby coldness
of this outside world,
put the last stitch on my coat.
Enda Wyley #IrishPoetry
You come in & we quickly leave behind
the thorny rose-gardens of our grown-up fights.
I smooth out the creases in your gentle face
I know I’ve often caused —
while you, keeping me from the shabby coldness
of this outside world,
put the last stitch on my coat.
Enda Wyley #IrishPoetry
You come in & we quickly leave behind
the thorny rose-gardens of our grown-up fights.
I smooth out the creases in your gentle face
I know I’ve often caused —
while you, keeping me from the shabby coldness
of this outside world,
put the last stitch on my coat.
Enda Wyley #IrishPoetry
… The spider
on the dining room window has fallen asleep
among complexities as I will once
the doors are bolted & the keys tested
& the switch turned up on the kitchen light
which made outside in the back garden
… a domestication
of closed daisies, an architecture
instant & improbable.
Eavan Boland
When my grandmother looked into my mother’s eyes
she saw what I see in my daughter’s.
Vona Groarke ‘House Style’ #IrishPoetry
@poetryireland.bsky.social
If you know these things,
you won’t slip your moorings
in heavy weather. Hold fast, you say,
our lake is as alone as the mind
before calm returns, and as handsome
as a scatter of starlings in the winter sky.
Eleanor Hooker ‘Murmuration’
#IrishPoetry
I come out alone onto the boreen,
A flinty path glimmering through mist,
Stilly night, wilderness listening to God,
The constellations in conversation,
Astonishing things up there in the sky,
The earth dozing in pale-blue radiance.
Michael Longley #IrishPoetry
Today is the 104th anniversary of the publication of #Ulysses. Here is a link to an essay I published in @postopinions.bsky.social to mark the novel’s centenary in 2022.
www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022...
