Poetry Ireland
http://www.poetryireland.ie

County Kildare Community Network
www.kildare.ie

CNN
www.cnn.com

National Public Radio
http://www.npr.org/

New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/ 

All Pictures taken from KNN

Our first impression of the people of Omaha was one of a very friendly nature. We were warmly greeted at the airport with flags and banners beaming our arrival. The Mayor of the city, Mike Fahey was amongst the first to greet us with a warm friendly smile and a firm handshake. The chairman of the Ancient Order of the Hibernians joined him, (an organisation that was formed to care for Irish immigrants on arrival to America). We were then introduced to the host families and then off for an adventure of a lifetime!

May we take this opportunity to thank all of our host families of who were exceptionally hospitable and kind. They made us feel as though we were true Nebraskans within minutes of our arrival. The background of each family was of a different nationality.

We found the city itself to be really clean and easy to get around. Most people there drive anywhere they want to go. The streets are laid out in the grid fashion so it would indeed be difficult to get lost.

We visited three schools. The first one we visited was Central. This is a mixed school with 2,800 pupils. The second one was Creighton Prep. This is an all boys' school that is run by the Jesuits. It has 980 pupils. The last one was Duschne. This is an all girls' school. We found the schools to be in immaculate condition.
 
There was no graffiti on any of the walls and the facilities were second to none. Despite the open relationship the students have with their teachers we found the discipline to be of a very high standard. We got on really well with all the students in the schools. We found them to be very open, friendly and enthusiastic. The students were of all different backgrounds and nationalities and all had the same bubbly enthusiasm. They seemed to mix in quite well with one another. They expected us to have red hair and rosy cheeks and were humoured to know that we have other hair colours in Ireland. The curriculum was quite unusual in that it was very broad. Subjects like social studies, Latin and drama were on the course. School begins at 7.30am and ends at 2pm. The sports there are segregated into three categories: Varsity, Junior Varsity and Reserve. These are not split by age level but by ability. So if you are a fifteen-year-old that is really good at football you could be on our equivalent of the senior team ie. the Varsity team. Among the sports played there are: basketball, (of which Creighton university did quite well in for the all American University championships in beating Florida in the first round), American football, wrestling and soccer but no GAA! What a pity as we were dying to show them a trick or two. There is more of an emphasis on playing for the school rather than for the club as is here in Ireland. People play for the clubs after they leave school. All in all we found visiting the schools quite enjoyable and informative as to the way the education system works in America.

The highlight of our tour was being made honorary citizens of Nebraska. This is the highest honour that can be given to any visitor of Nebraska. We were presented certificates at the city council on our last official day in the city. Very few people have been awarded this over the years. The certificates we received were all endorsed by the Mayor of Omaha and the Governor of the State. It was quite an occasion. We were also made Admirals of the, "Great Navy of Nebraska". Seeing Nebraska is an inland state this too was a prestigious honour. We have a plan to invade Canada soon and we will be returning to command our own vessels.

We feel with the twinning there are a lot of job opportunities for the people of Naas. With the openness and enthusiasm of the people of Omaha we are certain it would be a pleasure for anyone to work there.

Omaha will be setting up its own Youth Parliament soon. Currently there are student councils in each school. Mayor Mike Fahey is getting together a delegation to put down the foundations for this to happen. The Mayor was impressed with our way of doing things in Naas and wants to implement this in Omaha.

Our trip to Omaha was one of a lifetime. We thank all involved in making this happen among them, Mayor Willie Callaghan and Councillor Timothy Conway and Mayor Mike Fahey and James P. Cavanaugh. The above mentioned are but the select few that made it all happen. To mention all would be to write for an eternity.

The return journey will be made in late July where the people of Omaha will enjoy the experience of being in Ireland and mostly in twinning with our great town of Naas

My favourite past-time is writing poetry. I love poetry both reading and writing. I don't think a day goes by without a line coming to me from somewhere. I have constructed a formula for writing poems and also for learning poetry by heart. Please select from below:

The Making of a Poem - click here

Learning a Poem by Heart - click here

LEARNING A POEM BY HEART

1. You have to love the poem
2. Read it over a few times
3. Read it aloud
4. Find the flow of the poem
5. Count the number of lines
6. Put a picture on each line
7. Take the chief word on each line
8. Hang the word to each line
9. See the story and put the pictures into your mind and then add the language to the scenes

Take the rooms of your house and at each room pick out five large items. This gives my 20 items on which to hang words or sentences. Place the word on each item. (Appendix 1)

This method allows me to learn by heart the beautiful words of the finest poetry, prayers and literature. I can turn these around in my head during the day, so that no matter what I am working at or how bad the situation I am in the beauty of life.

I can wake up in the morning and drive to work with the beauty of poetry in my mind. Saying out the words I can understand the rhythm and the meaning of the words. It allows me fill my mind with beauty; which is a very good way to open the morning.

I  sometimes have a very sharp routine and carry a Dictaphone. It is much easier than stopping every few yards and having to write the sentence. On returning to the office I put this draft into my computer. I put the worked draft into my Dictaphone again and the next morning, work on it again. This could take a few sessions before I get it right. All the time I am updating my computer. I may leave it for a few weeks and go back to it. I am always reviewing and refreshing poems.

I change my routine very often. I now carry with me a half note book which sits easily in my pocket. I carry a few half biros which ensures I always have a pen available to enable me put the thoughts down as they occur. Thoughts are like clouds and once passed are gone unless written down. I often have difficulty at night as the warmth of the bed will deter me from writing the thought down. I convince myself that I will remember the lines in the morning but I never will. So sometimes I just get up and write them down.
Often they don’t sing as well as they flashed through my mind during the night but some do.

I do the same for the prose. I find the Dictaphone is a good discipline and I can hear my own voice and sound the idea or phrase. I wrote 5 North Main Street this way. Any time I sat before the computer I made a mess. In Comrade Tom my Novel I used the same procedure. I could hear and feel the atmosphere of the moment.

APPENDIX 1
 
Take the poem by Patrick Kavanagh -On raglan Road.

My first room there is the Window, T V, Fireplace, Piano and large dining table.

Window: On Raglan Road on an autumn day, I met her and I knew.  I look out and see the driveway and the leaves falling from the trees. I see a girl walking in.

T V: That her dark hair would weave a snare that one day I would rue.
I see the girl with black hair and a snare around her neck.

Fireplace:  I knew the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way.
I put my finger in the fire and feel the pain.

Piano:  And I said let grief be a falling leaf.
 From the piano, little leaves are falling full of tears.

Large table:  At the dawning of the day.
The dawn is rising on the gleaming table.

APPENDIX 2

Company Law: The essentials for the formation for a company.

C A N A L

C  Capital

A Authorised Share Capital

N Name

A Articles of Association

L Limited Liability 

Lest We Forget - Kildare and the Great Famine
Published by Kildare County Council
Click here to view

Galaxy 2 - Junior Certificate English
Editor: John Moriarty, Mentor Publications
Click here to view

Mill Lane - a thriving community in Naas
By Brian Byrne
Photographs by Jonathan Hession
Click here to view

Kildare County Council Calander 2000
Click here to view

1. Sink into the abundance of abandoned time.

I wrote the poem in the following way:

I was walking down the main street of Naas and as I passed the Town Hall the phrase:
Sink into the abundance of abandoned time; came into my mind; where it came from I will never know. I repeated it and repeated it, then dashed into a local shop owned by John Prout and asked for a piece of paper and a pencil. They probably thought I was mad. I wrote the phrase down and I had captured it. So many of these phrases are like passing clouds that pass through the mind without being recorded and are gone forever.
As I had an ending to a potential poem I could make a poem with this as an ending.

The next day we had a Revenue Audit for a client of ours. It would be a very stressful day. I walked the canal before the morning’s work began. I waved at Jackie Bracken across the canal. He had a shotgun and a retriever dog. He crossed an old gate and disappeared into the field.

My mind went into overdrive as I envied him and I was walking into a stressful day with the Revenue Inspector.

O That I Could Walk Down Rusty Ways
With stick in hand and dog
Plough into fields of weathered grass
Rise the pheasant
Caution the Hawk
Sink into the abundance of abandoned time
Be what I can never be

2. I HAVE AN OFFICE BESIDE THE CANAL

As an Accountant to a company; the Manager made an appointment for Friday Night which I didn’t like; at the meeting we discussed the business and another meeting was arranged for the following night; Saturday which was our night out. At the meeting one of the Bankers remarked that he heard I wrote Poetry.

He asked me:
- What subjects do you write about?
- All kinds of subjects.
- Can you write a poem about an office?
- Yes.
- We are to meet tomorrow night?
- Are we?
- Yes.
- So what?
- Can you have a poem on An Office for our meeting?
- I don’t know.
- There’s a challenge for you.

I was in bad humour leaving, but as it was my livelihood; I took up the challenge. As I came to Clongowes Wood College; the first line of the poem came into my mind. I pulled into the driveway of the College; James Joyce made famous; and wrote it down:

I have an office beside the canal
Beside a waterway
Beside the perch and bream
Where waterhen and duck make a circle
And gulls throw an echo into the houses
I have a place to go when pressure builds
Where robin fills my feet with light
And finches fly in rhythm overhead
Where leaves turn mist into tears
And I can roll myself in the apron of the blackbird

Our office was beside the canal and I described our Office situation; and I wrote the lines one after another. I needed an ending:
At I passed the early branch I saw the mist being converted into water and dripping off the leaf.
- Where leaves turn mist into tears.
I loved the words –Apron and Blackbird
 -And I can    in the apron of the blackbird.
I presented the poem, the following night.

 
3. I KNOW EVERY TREE IN THE WOOD BY NAME

One July evening I went for a walk by the liffey. As I walked into the wood beside the water; the first two lines came:

I KNOW EVERY TREE IN THE WOOD BY NAME
THE BIRDS THAT SING ARE ALMOST TAME

As usual I had no pencil and I ran home keeping the lines in my mind. I went into our house got a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote it down as I walked.

4. She lived among the wild flowers

On the evening of the 9th August 2006 My wife Kate and I took a walk along the beach at Seafield near Quilty in County Clare. We were visiting our relations. Kate walked on quickly leaving me to saunter. It was a clear evening and the sun was going down over Mutton Island. The first line of the poem came into my mind. I wrote it down and decided to follow it.
The lines carried on till I got to the fourth and I stopped and I could clearly see my mother in my mind. After this the poem took on a different flow and sentence after sentence came down. The poem took ten minutes to write. When I got to the sun going down, I looked behind me and the moon in all its fullness came up and I saw this as the natural ending.
Afterwards I worked on the lines and began to strengthen them but only succeeded in making a mess. I went back to the original and here it is:

She lived among the wild flowers

She lived among the wild flowers
Where cattle graze
And corncrake rasped the stillness
And by the sea she walked
Where the waves made furrows on her mind
She danced at the crossroads
To the sound of flute and fiddle
And her voice chanted the beauty of her place
Her spirit was free
And like the flocks of goldfinches
Moved with the melody
Her passion was for desolate places
Where alone she was never alone

Then one day he came
And she went with him
To an alien place
Into fields of strangers
And there she lived
And there she died
But her soul was always in that hallowed place
Where cuckoo romanced the bog
Calling his name over and over
Where the waves made music on the rocks
And the sun went down over Mutton Island
And the moon came up in full
To serenade the night

Famine Graveyard

They died unknown
Buried in plots
Unmarked
No Headstone,
No Funeral,
No Tears,
No Mourners,
Our Sickly Poor,
Forgotten Souls of Kildare.

by Timmy Conway

Digby Bridge

The iris is alight
Gaiety of smells
Invade the mind
Silence is rampant
At Digby Bridge
Two fishermen
With an impossible task
Tranquillity is everywhere

And I have seen the daffodil

The chairman called the delegate from the Artane branch.
The delegate addressed the conference:
- Comrades’!
- Comrades’!
- Comrades’!
- Commerades!

- I propose the amendment to the addendum of the composite resolution of the motion: -THAT EVERYTHING IS TO BE NATIONALISED EXCEPT BICYCLES.
- My branches’ amendment is dat we EXCLUDE BICYCLES BECAUSE EACH OF US OWN A BICYCLE.
- Comrades’!
- Another year of slavery has passed since I addressed You’se at the last conference. The learned doctors, professors and their ilk from Trinity College is talken in “isms”. 
- There’s Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, Catholicicism, Boo-da-ism Faca-is-ism and all those other isms.
- Commerades! The only “ism” we the Worken’ classes understand is Pessimism. Pessimism is the “ism” of the working class.  We are experts in Pessimism. I have Pessimism for breakfast, dinner if I get it and me tea. I could have a PHD in Pessimism and become a doctor of Pessimism.
- Commerades!
- The language of the Labour Party now is Friench. Everyone in the Labour Party is speaken Friench. The only Friench I know is me Accordion and that’s banjacksed.
- You have to be able to speak Friench in order to know what they are talken’ abou’. They are all talking abou’ LĀISE FARĒ; ye LĀISE FARĒ Commerades!
We’re for tat because Jem and I sweep chimneys in our spare time and we don’t want any interruption from the government. 
- They talk about the Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie, whoever they are.  
- But it’s simple Commerades, very simple!
- There’s Them!
- And There’s Us! 
- They’re Them!
- And We’re Us!
- We want to be Them! 
- But They don’t want to be Us. 
- Now Commerades, until they’re Us and We’re Them, the figh’ goes on; the figh’ goes on.
- We will figh’ until every sinew of our bodies is broke; broke Commerades; broke!
- We will never surr’nder.
- Never Commrades!
- Never!

The red light was flashing for him to step down but he ignored it. He was on a high:
- As me mate Jem said when he became the foreman:
The worken’ class can kiss me arse -
I got the foreman’s job at last
He then went into song to the tune of the RED FLAG
The worken’ class can kiss me arse
 I got the Foreman’s job at last
 I got the Foreman’s job at last
 I got the Foreman’s job at last
 The worken’ class can kiss me arse
I got the Foreman’s job at last
Commrades:
- The figh’ goes on;
- The figh’ goes on.

He received a standing ovation

This is an extract from a speech joe Berminghan gave in 1977 when he was fighting for his political life. There were 3 seats in the Kildare Constituency. The Fine Gael/Labour Coalition were so unpopular that Fianna Fail would win 2 seats out of the 3. The other seat was between two sitting deputies Paddy Malone of Fine Gael and Joe Berminghan of Labour.

Fine Gael had three times the Labour vote; twenty times the money and organisation than Labour. So Joe Bermingham was fighting for his political life. At this time in the country the price  of everything was soaring on a daily basis and this was people's main concern during the election.

JOE'S SPEECH ROUSING THE TROOPS

When Joe wanted to make an important point he followed this procedure:He had a big belly and wore trousers with a loose belt. When he took a deep breath, his stomach expanded and his trousers slipped. He grabbed the trousers with one hand and pounded the table with the other.

He raised his voice to a roar. This act sent the crowd into delirium. He himself was facing unemployment and poverty. He had known poverty before and he was in a rage. He was fighting for his life. He roared: 

You’sse will be hummard at the doors be prices! Don’t mind about what the papers are sayin’ that the issue is Northern Ireland and the outbursts of Connor Cruise O’Brien. I know he’s unpopular but the Ordinary Plain People of Kildare couldn’t give a dam about Northern Ireland. There is only one issue and that is Prices!

Again Joe pounded the table, harder this time and roared:

You’sse will be hummard at the doors be prices!

Some of the delegates jumped with fright. Once again he gave them time to allow this sink in. He again took a deep breath and roared:

Joe is always there when his people need him. The others are there when they need the people. Once the election is over they disappear.

This was greeted with applause, as the lads from Athy roared back:

Great man Joe!

Again he took a small breath and catching his trousers in one hand while banging the table with the other he roared:

You’sse will be hummard at the doors be PRICES.

John O’Connell a member of the Naas Branch whispered to me: I can see a woman coming to the door armed with a brush and beating us because of PRICES.

Yes I’m telling You’sse. You’sse will be hummard and I mean hummard at the doors be PRICES I’m telling You’se one vital thing before You’se go out campaigning for the LABOUR PARTY. The LABOUR PARTY is very unpopular. This Government is more unpopular and the public is going to take revenge for the rising prices. They are fed up to the teeth with it. It is my belief that Fine Gael will be the big loser. They will not accept they have a major problem. They are trying to explain things to the public. How can you explain to a woman that she has to reduce the food for the house? They buy margarine instead of butter. They are waiting out there for us and they will get us.

Joe took another deep intake of breath and again his trousers took a downward turn. He grabbed the trousers with one hand and pounded the table again with his fist and shouted:

You’sse will be hummard at the doors be prices!

Joe paused, took a quick intake of breath, looked with terror written on his face and roared:

Don’t try to explain rising prices at the doors. You will get yourself confused and you will have the woman at the door twice as confused. Remember:

A CONFUSED PERSON IS A DANGEROUS PERSON

They will do anything bar what you want them to do.

Don’t try to explain inflation. Inflation is one of those things that nobody understands, not even Garret Fitzgerald. If he doesn’t know how the Hell will you? How can You’se explain it to a woman who is out to bate You’se.

Don’t try to explain prices. This will lead to massive confusion and I’m telling You’se:

A CONFUSED PERSON IS A DANGEROUS PERSON.

ASK FOR THE WOMAN OF THE HOUSE AND ADDRESS HER AS FOLLOWS:
MISSUS: VOTE NUMBER ONE FOR JOE BERMINGHAN. HE NEEDS YOU MORE THAN EVER NOW. AFTER THIS ELECTION YOU WILL NEED HIM MORE THAN EVER. HE WILL NEVER FORGET THIS TO YOU’SE.

Missus; Joe Bermingham knows what You’se is going through. He is very sorry for You’se and he doing all he can to help You’se. He wants you to give him YOUR NUMBER 1. He will work for You’sse harder that ever before. He will be there for you when you need him. He knows how You’se is hurting and he is hurting with you.

Another deep intake of breathe and drifted into a soft voice said: Fri’nds: I have no money and that’s the height of it. I’m facing starvation and you my Fri’nds are the only people that can help me.

He sat down to thunderous applause and a standing ovation. Mrs. Davern from Ballymore roared:

We love you, Joe! God Bless Joe.