I have always loved Ireland. However, I always knew that someday, I would have to leave. Growing up with this kind of angst, it is no wonder I am a poet, writes sf ca writer.

One day, at the age of 9, I found my way to the Zoo in the Phoenix Park, alone. I remembering thinking that if this keeps up I will end up in the wild west. Which, of course, kids always being right, I did.

It wasn’t that I expected a catastrophe, it wasn’t that I feared Ireland would be overrun by pestilence or disease. I just knew, from a very young age, that they would screw things up. For everybody.

The ‘they’ of Ireland is wide ranging but tight group. They lurk in the Dail and various corridors of various powerful places. Lingering long enough, with enough selfishness and lack of leadership, to mess things up, for everybody, forever.

I still tell people about my idyllic childhood, the swimming, the football, the ‘no fear’. But that was then, this is now.

Life goes on, getting better still. There are fond memories, but there is some resentment too, resentment at lost potential and resentment at only ever seeing my family on a computer screen.

Reflections at Start-Up

- sf ca writer

I have a blog, updated almost daily, poetry about Ireland,economics, emigration, how we really feel, by sf ca writer here: www.sfcawriter.wordpress.com.