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Poems by John Minahane

 

John Minahane wrote these poems during a very fraught period in Ireland in the late 1970s. In 1996 he went to live and teach in Slovakia. He has published a number of translations of Slovak poets, notably Ladislav Novomesky (Slovak Spring, Belfast Historical and Educational Society, 2004) and Milan Rufus (To Bear the Burden and Sing, Matica Slovenská, Literárne Informacné Centrum, 2008). He has also published a number of commentaries on Gaelic politics and culture, notably The Christian Druids: on the filid or philosopher-poets of Ireland (Sanas Press, 1994), The Contention of the Poets. An essay on Irish intellectual history (Sanas Press, 2000) and The Poems of Geoffrey O'Donoghue, with an essay on Ireland's War Poets, 1641-1653, Aubane Historical Society, 2008.

 

At Portadown Station
Says the Romantic
The Faintheart's Lament
Terence McSwiney's ghost speaks to the Provos
March 20th demonstration (a poem in several parts)
The blond-haired beast who passed me on the road
To Spinoza
Good Friday
To Terence McSwiney
Soliloquy of the Rev Jimmy Jones on the night before the massacre