Biography

See me on Facebook... Profile: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=736687279&ref=name FanPage: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tomas-O-Carthaigh/31714088267 Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=57170429046 Creative Exchange: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=39045943853 Poetry Lunch: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=195154605322# Publish by Subscription: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=38823959041 I love reading others work too, and the work of the three Roberts, Burns, Frost and Service have been a major influence on me, as have the Irish writers Yeats, Colum and Moore. I like to write old fashioned poetry... you know... the boring kind that rhymes!!! I write on all topics, from the current train of thought. Though not a great runner to church faith occurs as a subject a lot in what I write. Championing the underdog is another strong theme of by poetry, from the Red Indian to the Roma, to the Scots and ourselves.

Samples

Burns loved the lasses, out with many he walked How the parsons grumbled: how the people talked! Condemned he was by parson and people, in pulpit and letter! Shame on the ladies who walked out with a man like he! The lad that loved the lasses scorned them all Who he and his ladys as sinners they did call And chided them for having nothing to do better! Than annoy two of God creatures who in Love be! Sinners at a Séance They sat together round a table As decent folk lay in bed So that they might be able To converse with the dead. Spirits came, they told, when called To cross the great divide And others sat enthralled As some spoke to loved ones who died. Such by all faiths is forbidden Called by all a sin For Evil in the dark arts is hidden But is found deep within And the séance is a Trojan horse, a gift And the should when in peace Like a flea on a dog, ir lives a lift And so to Evil gives release. Thus inspired by spirits found At such séances at night Yeats, with pen and paper found New inspiration for imaginations flight. Why did not he do so as I And other normal men Take time out to see the sky Or turn to church again? The Holy Ghost is a spirit to seek Its message is pure and true The Word of God is what it does speak Of its word you can be sure Though not often, and in church twice as rare My thoughts t such turn for a while I find peace and inspiration in prayer And start to write with a smile… The Great Mc Gonagle! Of awful verse he was the master, Writing of the Tay Bridge disaster, Stating Shakespeare the best wordsmith be, In Britain to date, and second he, No disrespect to Burns the Bard No desire for a great name to be tarred, He was second best Scottish son, For north of the border, Mc Gonagle was number one! On receiving inspiration divine Pen he seized to write a line Continued to write, such verse he penned: Was to cause mirth until his end! His first verse was to the Reverend Gilfillan, an address Which was judged by same to be a poetic mess Wryly the poets efforts the minister did dismiss Stating "Shakespeare wrote nothing like this!" His verse on theatre and street he read, With laughter and derision he was met instead, Of the respect he expected, while reading pompous Clad in Kilt he caused quite a rumpus! He tried once to America to go But on its shores no-one did know Found himself cut loose, culturally cast away His homeward fare a kind stranger did pay Once fifty miles or more he walked To read verse to the queen: but when he talked To the guardsmen at the gate He was turned away in indignant state To be poet laureate he said he wished to seek, To be told that to try he had a cheek, And he’d better move while still was free, To go as he pleased all the way home to Dundee. And them his finest hour came, Or maybe his greatest composition of shame! When the Tay Bridge collapsed in a gale While upon it crossed a train by rail... And to write upon it he was possessed To read his words few were impressed And his ode to the tragedy of the bridge of the Tay Causes smiles to all to this very day. Was he a fool... or just a bad poet If he was a fool he seemed not to know it Some say he was clever acted if on a stage, As he commanded his audience as he read from his page. Though they laughed and at him things threw, That he brightened their day that much he knew And how many writers who so serious could be Will be long forgotten when remembered is he? How many poets refuse to use rhyme Mc Gonagle insisted to use it all the time Unfortunately the pattern often fell out of place, In the age of the Romantics that cast him from grace, He was but a common man, at least he did try, To be like him, none want to be including I, But still to convention he was never a slave, And to his emotions was never the knave As I this verse write in his appalling style I admire his bravery, smiling all the while, Though great are his foes and his friends they are few, To his art in his heart he tried to be true, And those who read his words may mock and may grin But to be a weaver and a poets no sin And as I sit here more poetry to write, May I be pure as heart as he as I scribble tonight! First Ode to Wordsworth Verses of Golden daffodils I’ve read That waved in the varying wind around That showed the beauty of the world That in the sight he found. Such verses of serenity, Of ambience and of peace, That he desired for the world, And of global freedom were to cease... And the champion of the underdog The republican, and of those not free Was to change in the blink of an eye, To champion the system, empire and monarchy. And bonny Wordsworth who with pen Signed his works with name as "Will" Changed to the more formal "William" And wrote his name as such his death until... What caused this change I do not know, To find out is an impossible task, But if to where he is on death I go, The question to him I’ll surely ask! */ Early writings of Wordsworth were libertarian and reactionary in nature, full of the joys of life, to which he signed his name "Will Wordsworth". However, a change in the tone and subject matter arrived in the second period of his life, and on these more socially standard works he wrote his name in the more formal "William Wordsworth", by which we know him today. This poem is inspired by a "Readers Digest" article from 1970 that explores his work and asks why as to the change in the name and tone of works from Wordsworth.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.

Blog entries by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh

Statues Fall (17/08/2017)

Ambush At Dooney Rock (06/11/2016)

Chicago May – the Mary Ann Duignan Story… (21/02/2016)

That Little Four Letter Word Called Love (08/10/2015)

Out Dogs and More Along With You (02/07/2015)

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! (17/06/2015)

Coffin Ships of the Modern Age (28/04/2015)

Let Death Have For You No Fear (14/04/2015)

The trials of life and love and the poems they inspire... (19/03/2015)

BLOG --- Its been a while... since my last confession! (22/07/2014)

Read more entries by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh…

Blog link: https://www.writeoutloud.net/blogs/tomásÓcárthaigh

Audio entries by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh

Give to Me an Angry Sea (01/09/2012)

That We May Never Have to Play Dalibors Fiddle (07/01/2010)

Favourite Profiles

Gray Nicholls