Statues Fall

Before you read the poem... a few more to open in New Tabs!!!

On Boycotting the Sean Mac Eoin Statue Unveiling

My Ireland

Chicago May - the Mary Ann Duignan Story...

 

Now... enjoy the poem!

Smashing the Nazi Eagle statue in Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria

Freedoms cries brought the statues down
The Reich lay in ruins as a new regime
Promised freedom of a versio...

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Ambush At Dooney Rock

Anti Treaty IRA forces captured “The Ballinalee” armoured car, and it saw action against the Free State Army in future engagements before being burned out when recapture was beyond prevention. It was renamed “The Wild Rose of Lough Gill”

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,

– “The Fiddler of Dooney” (W.B. Yeats)

========...

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Chicago May – the Mary Ann Duignan Story…

 

Mary Ann Duignan was the daughter of Francis Duignan of Edenmore in Ballinamuck where she grew up, and Ann Grey of Mohill in Leirtim. From a poor background she would rise – or fall as we may see it! – to being one of the biggest conwomen of her time, who would call herself the “Queen of Crooks”, in time though, the law caought up with her and she died in poverty and obscurity. She was th...

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That Little Four Letter Word Called Love

In the game of love, the act that should be the last, is now the opening salvo. But, as a man… why am I complaining?

This one is a work in progress. A bit bitter after hearing a fellow poet dismiss men’s romantic verse as “cheesy”, I thought how the shaggers / fuckers call them what you will, win and the decent folk are cast aside in these common times…

Karl Marx said religion was the ...

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Out Dogs and More Along With You

n our home in Aughagreagh we used to have our share of the local sessions, where neighbours met up to party, tonight in one house, next night in someone else’s. This tells of a local house where the wife had a short tolerance after a certain hour and wanted the house cleared. The locals, out of a sense of fun and divilment, were not for moving… I wrote a version of this before and lost the words o...

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Breaking the Duck at the Roisin Dubh, some Salsa Dancing and Tai Chi in Galway – Getting through the Bucket List and Early Onset Mid Life Crisis!

Try something new they said. So that was my challenge for this week, and I also got to introduce a Galway audience to the brand of poetic humour that Dublin and Tullamore has come to expect from our Carty!

The open mic night at the Roisin Dubh was something I had wanted to partake in for a while. From the poetry to the comedy gigs down there, I am a regular attendee, normally a heckler ...

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Coffin Ships of the Modern Age

 

Fading from the News... Issues still relevent... Posted 7 Seconds Ago


 

Coffin Ships of the Modern Age

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh

 

Fading from the news, the issues of refugees, either economic or political dying in the Mediterranean are still relvent and must be kept alive until the issue is sorted.

 

Its just news, another raft or ship
Upended, ...

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Let Death Have For You No Fear

Let Death Have For You No Fear

Posted on April 14, 2015 by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh

 

Master Greene was a Ballinalee schoolteacher who learned the Irish Traveller cant and ended up teaching it to the grandchildren of the woman who taught it to him, who had it forgotton… he died at the ripe old age of 106!

That we all may live as long… and as well!

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BLOG --- Its been a while... since my last confession!

Bless me Father, for I have sinned...
Its been a hell of a long time since my last confession here!

As always with blog posts, it bes a while between them. I call them my "confessions" as it normally sums up what I have been doing in the while before them.



So, for the past year, we have had a number of poetry readings in Tullamore and thereabouts with theTullamore Rhymers Club that I am...

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Capitalism Is Sick

How much is enough?
The question I ask
Of the shareholders rich
Who bring to talk
The board of a company
Who say times are tough
They only made billions in profits…
Disappointing, not enough.

 

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I Blame It All On TESCO

(or how men lost their status in relationships)

When dinosaurs walked tall on earth,
And Tesco was yet to be…
Women who wanted meat and shit
Relied on chaps like me…
We gathered up our clubs and spears,
And risked our very lives,
To bring back meat and furry skins
So as to get some loving from our wives…

But then, some bollix invented Tesco,
And the Dino’s all died out,
And things g...

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Give to Me an Angry Sea

While on holiday in Sardinia, a wild storm inspired the following poem...

Read the words here >>>

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"We Reap What We Sow" - Japans Tsunami and the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster 2011

"We Reap What We Sow" - Japans Tsunami and the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster 2011



The recent nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan in the wake of the recent earthquakes and tsunami shows what folly man has to think that he can contain forever and in all eventualities the power of nuclear energy.

No one thought of the force of a tsunami wave breaking the cooling system on th...

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The Woman Behind the Veil - the great Burqa Debate...

Here we ask is the media and the cosmetics industry as oppressive to women as the Islamic burqua?

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A Citizen Peasant Answers a Question of a Man of Graces

If ever you want to wind up an Irishman like me, dress up in full riding gear and refer to yourself and you chums as "gentry". The following poem, while not Shakespeare, retells a story from Tyrellspass in Westmeath beside me where one poor tourist made the mistake...

 

 

 

Can you tell me, sir, a man passing did say
To a citizen of Ireland at his gate one day
When the ...

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New Song: "Our Never Had Romance" - Ó Cárthaigh / Schroeter

New Song: "Our Never Had Romance" - Ó Cárthaigh / Schroeter

Our Never Had Romance


Part of the "Lady of the Sweetest Smile" series, the song is samg by Guillherme Shroeter of Brazil, who wrote the music to my lyrics.

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LOVELOVE SONGROMANCEADORELADY

911 Tribute Poem

What did it achieve, bar hatred
And indeed if that was its aim
It did not build the hatred they thought
We don't hate all Moslems the same
Some fools do, but not us all
So it failed, the bombers dream
We know the majority are just like us
And the terrorists from the extreme.

Some s...

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Words Written While Listening to "Moonlight Sonata"

As if the gods were striking the strings
The air the piano plays
And I listening am transported
Back to former slower days
When the world was better and people purer
For all the faults we know they had
And I look at the world and its woes
And its greed and I am sad.

It is strange...

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"Cat in the Kitchen" - Satire on the US withrawal from Iraq

We put the cat out of the kitchen
For we saw upon the shelf
That what was on it was priceless
And he just might smash the delph

And we saw in the window the flowerpots
And he jumped in and out
We were afraid he might break the plants
As he gamboled about.

And we saw on the table the food
The best of milk and of meat
You cant have a ca...

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iraqwithrawalsunni shiitebagdad

Kid in a Cart in Kosovo

Kid in a Cart in Kosovo

A Poem by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
 

After Kosovo war ethnic Romany's fled, only to return when the war was over. 11 years later they are still there. Its a UN camp. 89 at are dead from lead.
 

There's a kid in a cart in Kosovo
Asleep tonight in his bed
Such as it is in a refugee camp
That is poisoned by lead.
...

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Srebrenica - Сребреница

 

Will humanity ever learn? Europes worst war crime since World War II brought home the fact that its not just Cambodia and distant places where massacres occur, but anywhere that there is hate.

This time the Serb units in the area were in the wrong. Courts rules the Serb state as it was and is was not responsible. Last time it was...

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SrebrenicamassacreBosniaWarRatkoMladicSerbiaSerbianTigersDelijeRedStarBelgradebosniancivilUtashaSerbsBosniaksTurkeyOttomanKosovar

I Was the Reluctant Lover

 

I was the reluctant lover
She was a Goddess divine
I was not as brave as a man should be
And so her heart was never mine

Oh, am I the fool of legend
Am I the only one
Who loved and lost as I never tossed
My hat in the ring till the girl was gone?

And as I look at the picture
Her face...

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For the Corncrakes Sake and Mankinds

 

The corncrake has been saved more or less by efforts of the "Save the Corncrake" movement in Ireland, and the RSPB in the UK. The bird, its distinctive sound once common, is now only in a few hinterlands, one of the main ones in the callowlands around Banagher in County Offaly, and down into Lusmagh and also Meelick and Clonfert in neighbouring Galway, where ...

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Just Because They Once Were Victims

 

This is not an anti-semetic poem, or anti - Israeli poem.

This is a protest poem, in protest at the violation of human rights in attacking ships laden with aid and medical supplies bound for Gaza.

Israel has the right to exist... fact.

So does Palestine... fact.

Israel cannot starve out the ...

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Hatred in the Heart of Olde England

They bought the land, we understand
With hard cash fair and square
But as they are not English folk
They cannot build their own park there
On land that they themselves own
As a blockade blocks the load
Of supplies for drainage and ancillary works
So they don't camp on the road
For their town is picturesque
In the heart of Old England
The truth's if your not white, E...

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"Just a Boy" - Toyosi Shittabey Memorial Poem

This is the kind of poem a poet wishes that they did not have to write... this is the kind of poem that gives a poet the reason to write, its why God gave us the ability to write.

A Nigerian immigrant was murdered on the streets of Dublin, Ireland on Good Friday last. This poem is my reaction to the tragedy...

 

 

...

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Cartys Poetry Journal

Submissions saught to cartyweb@hotmail.com for the February edition of Cartys Poetry Journal.

Read the January edition below...

Carty's Poetry Journal : FREE PDF DOWNLOAD
€3.50
Ships in 3–5 business days
 
The inaugoral January 2010 edition of Cartys Poetry Journal, a magazine of poetry of poets from Ireland and across the world.

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That We May Never Have to Play Dalibors Fiddle


During  Vladislav II's reign  knight Ploskovský behaved toward his people in serfdom in a such a cruel way, that peasants did revolt capturing him and forced him to free them from the serfdom.

The peasents asked for serfdom from Dalibor from Kozojed, who behaved in a more humane way.
The nobles, scared of the trend spreading invited Dalibor to the court to Prague and put him into the prison, gra...

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Here is a playlist of my latest poems posted on YouTube

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Did a Spirit Knock On Rossbawns Walls

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Did a Spirit Knock
On Rossbawn's Walls?
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The story is told that an agent was slain
By a tenant called Delaney who on the run did die
In caves upon Sliabh Blooms wild hills
Many many years gone by.
For sustenance he came down the hill
To his house, outside a window he eat till he was full
And should the Yeomanry or Constab...

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What I Have Been Up To.... Poetry Lunches and Facebook

OK, for the first time this is not just a poem publication, but an info piece...

POETS EXPRESS, BANTRY, Co. CORK, Ireland

A poetry night in the Boys Club in Bantry, featuring yours truly and poets from Manchester, Northern Ireland and Ireland all over...


We are organising a meetup over lunch to read each others poems and to network as writers and artists. The initial one is in Tul...

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Dreams

Dreams

 

Who send these images that enter my sleep held brain?

Who paints these images vivid that I cant remember all of?

What is the meaning of these warped images that I when asleep can see plain

But on waking am blinded and can remember little of?

Strange apparitions of times past are suddenly recalled

So real its almost as if I can touch

Is the waking world with its regularity sprawle...

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Israe or Hamas: Which is Worst?

Isreal or Hamas:
Which is the Worst?


 

Above: Logo of Hamas, and an Israeli tank.

They suffered at our hands for ages
Only to inflict the same
On others in their own land
On which they laid claim

But there were those among the natives
From whom nothing else would do
But to wipe out Israel
And the death of every Jew

They claim to love Yahweh, Alla
But I think alas
The distain for God of an aethiest
Is more l...

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A Reading from Tomás Ó Cárthaigh

Video: "To Be, or Not to Be A Bee"


Powered by Web Wiz Site News version 3.06

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Some Seasonal Poems for Halloween

Here are some seasonal poems for Halloween, all true, as told by my family from North Longford...

"Old Clonbroney" is the story of a man who met a headless horseman when calling on a neighbour after moving into the area.

Above:
(left) Irish famine victim with children
(right) A black dog, thought of as a damned soul or personification of Satan  

Apperantly this is actua...

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An Cailín Bocht Marbh / The Poor Dead Girl

An Cailín Bocht Marbh

 

Áileann a bhí a h-aghaidh,
Agus dathúil soiléir a bhí a tón,
Bhí airgead go leor ina póca,
Agus cóicéain suas a srón.
D’fhéach daoine uirthi,
Cailín óg d’fhiche bliain d’aois,
Bhí a pictiúr sna nuachtáin,
Agus ar an teilifís
Bhí soal breá ós a cóir,
Bhí gach rud ceart go leor,
Agus nuair a fuair sí bás,
Bhí an caoineadh di, mór.

Cúpla lá roimhe, I bPort Láirge,
Bhí cúpla fir...

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My Website update

I have added some new sections to my website http://www.writingsinrhyme.com and also some poems have been added to the site. Fopr those who like foreign language poems, I have some in Irish, French and German, and also a couple of Haikus in Serbian, and a poem translated to Filipino... just to cap things off.

If anyone wants to translate a poem for me, email me to let me know of it, and Ill post ...

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The Unseen Shadow

Nothing but a shadow now
That cannot be seen by the eye
And others that never knew her
See not she passes by
And walks the fields of her youth
So different in her day
Where she lost in war the one she loved
And afterwords pined away.

Yes, a lovely corpse she made
Dead when young and in her prime
How cruel is it that God He says
That now it is their time.
But did she not upon her death
Meet her love on the ot...

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Whose Heart Does She Make Beat Faster?

Whose Heart Does She Make Beat Faster?

Whose heart does she make beat faster
As she once did to mine?
She of the smile that won my heart
She was to me divine
And as all angels do
She flew away from me
And I the fool the love I had
I never let her see
But someone somewhere has a beating heart
That she makes beat faster still
As mine did then when her I knew
And always will until
Upon my deathbed ...

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Fight Prostitution with Poetry

A Smile Unseen At Night

 
A smile by us unseen
In the darkness of night
A stranger greets a stranger
Who has come into sight
But the stranger he stops not
Or dallies for a while
He knows unless he has money
There no point in returning the smile
And a few yards behind him
Another man by walks
At whom the lady smiles
And him, he stops and talks
A moment from life on the...

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The Devil Quoting Scripture

Here is a little poem I wrote condemning all the self righteous craw thumping anti-immigrant anti-socialist so called Catholics and Protestant who run to church on Sunday, and spend the rest of the week sinning.

The Devil on the street stood trying to temp men to sin
So he opened up a whorehouse and invited all men in
He set himself up as a fair man, in whom both the lady's and their Johns could t...

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Barking Dogs and Iraq

Barking Dogs and Iraq

Two dogs were fighting on the street
Barking and biting over a piece of meat
That a third dog, passing, gobbled and ran
As dogs do because they can
As a child onthe pavement walking by
Stood before them and started to cry
Saying she feared such dogs biting, with their teeth bared
Was told they are just squabbling and not to be scared.

And you dear reader, I know well
A...

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Shall Another Read My Words

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Shall Another Read My Words
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Shall another read my words
In a far off distant day
I hope that they enjoy the rhymes
That I on paper lay.

And if they look in wonder
At the world that through my eyes is seen
Then, I the writer will have known
My life as a writer: a waste has not been

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Verses on Economics

Verses on Economics


I
The workers pain is for the employers gain
As to do his work de does strive
Who from the harvest gets barely a grain
Enough just to let him survive
 The employer merely for sitting and for work setting
And investing money, thereby risking all
The weight of the profit he is getting
To lose as much should the venture fall.

II

Is this right that this is so?
That this state of t...

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The Workers of the World

They made a system to liberate the worker
Then told us how it would operate
The Republic of and owned by the worker
The Ultimate Utopic state...
 
 
They told us then how to think,
What we could do, where we could go,
After freeing us from churches brainwashing,
Showed what politics and faith to show...
 
And to be thankful that the freed us
From that Capitalist slavery
So that as s...

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The Turn of Luck - An Irish Good Luck Story

The Ballad of the Turn of Luck

Life throws men such hardship
And misfortune, having no job or work to do,
It seems that its unbeatable,
And its going to beat you.
But a tale we tell of Vice Kearney
Who had children three
A poor house with a leaking roof
Seemingly no hope could there be...

Each week at the dole office
His name hed sign for his dole
A ritual for survical
That tore at his very sou...

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