Lost Between : Writings on Displacement an anthology

Lost Between was launched in the IWC recently to a full house. It is a beautiful collection of stories and poetry written by a group of Irish and Italian writers. I was a part of the first group of writers that went to Italy back in 2012. It was a fantastic experience. Some of the group recently had their stories translated into Italian. The second group of Irish writers headed over last year to successfully continue the project bringing it to a whole new level with Lost Between published by New Island. The introduction is written by Catherine Dunne and Federica Sgaggio who spear headed the project. As New Island writes "The individual works stand proudly by themselves to leave a lasting impression, and when read together they emerge to form a diverse, soulful and evocative collection that will charm and inspire."
You can listen to Catherine Dunne talk about the project recently on Arena.

Buy it here.

New York

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tenerife

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bath

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Windsor

 

 

London town

A visit to London town is always busy. Its a case of cram it all in as quickly as possible. I always breath a sigh of relief when I step off the plane back in Dublin. As nice as London is; its hard work.  After arriving at a ridiculously early hour and dropping our bags at our digs it was breakfast at Borough Market. I chomped down on a sausage bap  for my second breakfast of the day. Then it was onto the V&A. A quick look around the photography and the fashion room before I had the worst coffee I've ever tasted.  Back out on the street we didn't really know what was going on. Police and army appeared from no where with helicopters looming over head. To be honest my first thought was 'has a bomb gone off somewhere?' Paranoid much? Later on we discovered it was a Pro-Palestinian protest about to make its way around the side of Hyde Park. We settled ourselves and headed for The Photography Gallery. With enough energy for one last stop we made our way to the John Soane Museum. He was an architect and collector. He left his house and estate to the State instead of his children. I'm sure that went down well. So fitting that A Rake's Progress by William Hogarth is part of his collection.  Defeated we returned for naps before dinner. And oh what a dinner it was! My sister works at The Garrison. To say that we were looked after would be understating it. The service was fantastic, the food impeccable.
The photo of the Shard above is the view from my happy dinner perch. With just enough room (I decided not to dessert for this reason) we headed to The Hide for cocktails.

With the cocktail residues still merrily making their way around my system I woke up nice and early. I had a people watching coffee and croissant back at Borough Market as I waited for the troops to convene and then it was around the corner to The Tate Modern. The Malevich exhibition was my destination. Would have checked out the Matisse too except for we ran out of time and had to high tail it across town for Sunday lunch at Brawn. And what a f#*%ing lunch it was too. I have two words only: go there. I rounded out the day with dinner in Pizarro watching the last of the rain and  stragglers making their way down Bermondsey Street on a lazy Sunday evening.

One last cultural hurrah at Sotheby's for the Unauthorized Banksy Retrospective. I couldn't quite figure out who was taking the piss out of whom?! But the snobby girl at the door made it all worthwhile.

Thursday and the recovery continues ...

On leaving a place behind

A very good friend is leaving behind her life in London and returning to the Pacific seaboard; her (other) hometown of San Francisco. To say I'm going to miss her is an understatement. We've known each other for nearly a decade. Many decades will follow I'm sure, but this move is the end of an era. The end of one thing is only the beginning of another. And leaving a place behind is simply leaving a place behind - everything else travels with you.

Lara wrote a beautiful piece on her blog about leaving one home for another.

leaving home

it finally hit me.  today.  after weeks of only half believing it.  i’m leaving london.
my room’s bare. outside albion drive is bathed in sunshine and spring flowers, all this newness, all this change.
the aussie from the shipping company picked up my six ‘destination: sfo-usa’ boxes this morning, efficient, skilled, oblivious to me walking behind the boxes to the van, as if behind a funeral hearse, a procession.
my belongings are in transit, they’re in between here and there, a little like my head these past weeks piecing together a new life in california, while feeling more rooted than ever in my life and friends and favourite places in london.  a slow dissolving of commitments, of the responsibilities and possessions that hold me here.  and now with majority of my stuff gone and my room with its small piles of clothes and toiletries and whatnots, another string is cut.  in five days i’ll leave this home and this country.
the boxes, the size is called tea carton, are in a truck now racing towards a warehouse near the airport to be weighed, to be measured, to be inspected. inside my collections of green woods 1950s teacups and the jam jars and borough wine reusable bottles, samira’s ceramic bowl, my down duvet, my trinkets and postcards and posters and blankets and dishes and cutlery and books and books and books.  my years here, nearly ten, packed hurriedly and ferried away.
what to keep, what to bring to charity shops.  these decisions over the past weeks have surprised me, how sentimental i am over stuff, some of it found on sidewalks, bought for fifty pence at jumble sales, some of it gifted, most of it bought, as if in all this stuff, there will be an understanding of my time here that i can take with me, that will remind me of who and where i have been in this future life, tentative, unformed, of my london, edinburgh and st andrews stories, the choices i’ve made, the experiences i’ve had, the friends, and walks and quiet moments shared. 

Spring in Orvieto

 view from the bell tower (just before the bell rang and I lost five years off my life)

 

performances for the Festa Della Palombella after the dove zip-lined into the square to a roar of clapping and fireworks. you have to see it to believe it.

cathedral ...

deserted by night

en route to sample the organic and biodynamic very delicious Classico of Barberani

 

 

day trippin' to Civita di Bagnoreggio

 



 

The Ruins of Detroit

I saw "The Ruins of Detroit" exhibition by the photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre earlier this year in the Fontana Fortuna Gallery in Amsterdam. Industrial Detroit: a forgotten civilisation, a dying world that is still holding on with its steel girders and well built walls. The photos are a beautiful testement to what we are capable of acheiving but also what we are capable of destroying.

The complete annihilation of this part of the city from an industry led economy is enthralling. I marvelled at the audacity, bravery of both its inception and its destruction. They left behind homes, schools, theatres, doctors and dentists surgerys, alongside factories, police stations (including blood sample evidence) and offices. The kind of scene you'd expect to see after an apocolypse. But its neighbours have just stepped back and watched it callopse.

So whats changed? The cyclical and unchanging hounds of history divide and conquer no matter what this generation says about the last.

The artists statement: "Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies  and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension.  The state of ruin is essentially a temporary situation that happens at some point, the volatile result of change of era and the fall of empires. This fragility, the time elapsed but even so running fast, lead us to watch them one very last time :  being dismayed, or admire, making us wondering about the permanence of things. Photography appeared to us as a modest way to keep a little bit of this ephemeral state."

The exhibitions tragic beauty is enthralling. Look through some more of the collection here. Buy the book here.
(Photographs in this post are copyright Yves Marchand, Romain Meffre)

The Greenway, Mayo.

My dad wanted to do something different.  My sister, at the end of an adventure around Europe finished up in Dublin with a significantly lighter wallet, wanted to do something else before heading back to London.  It was the end of August and I was eager to make the most of the last days of summer so I suggested The Greenway.
We packed small backpacks with a change of clothes and blister plasters and took the train to Westport to commence the 42km walk to Achill.

 



After an overnight in Westport and a belly full of the Full Irish we started in earnest.  It was hoods up as soon as we left the hotel.  With a cheery acceptance that we may have hoods up the whole time we walked through the town to start the trail.  On our first day, Friday,   on the Westport to Newport leg we literally did not bump into anyone else on the path.   We didn't met any other walkers on the path at all and from day two  anyone else we encountered was cycling. More than a few commented on our craziness for walking and not cycling; "It's much quicker" the cyclists laughed as they sped past.  But surely that wasn't the point?
We stayed overnight in Newport and eager to replace the lost calories of the day we had dinner and fantastic pints of Guinness in the Grainne Uaile but the best part was the ridiculously fantastic Pear and Almond tart that I have since tried but failed to replicate.

After Full Irish number two we were on our way again for the second leg, Newport to Mulranny. It was Saturday the sun was shining and the Way was busy.  Families, groups and singular cyclist rang their bells around us. After taking one or two diversions off the path we walked an epic 24km.  Our arrival in Mulranny Park Hotel was silent and tired.  I went straight to the jacuzzi, the other two didn't make it past the front bar. Dinner that night in the beautiful dining room overlooking Clew Bay was spectacular. The sleep that followed was deep and still.

With blister plasters applied day three the final leg, Mulranny to Achill began after yet another porkathon in the breakfast room. I won't lie the final leg was difficult.  We stopped for tea and porter cake along the way. Luckily we didn't see the rain began until our final approach to Achill.

The walk down into the town and across the bridge seemed never ended.  The wind howling in off the Atlantic was almost too strong to walk against.  As we stopped to catch our breath we watched a boat come into harbour with a broken mast being held up my about five men. Could the wind really have done that we wondered as we inched over the bridge.

After about seventeen hours walking over three days it was disconcerting to get into the car and be driven back to Westport in a little over sixty minutes.  As the Way became visible from the road at intervals we relived our moments as we hurtled past.  Our walk seemed so epic and I guess it was.  With just a change of clothes, the freedom of  being outdoors, the free flow of easy conversation and silence, the juicy blackberries dotted through the hedgerows and the polite greetings from fellow travellers we all felt suitably intrepid.

One foot in front of the other was the only way to get there.