Stephen Roddy – Debut EP – “A Little Darkness”

(nephew of George) 22nd October 2021 visit to Rodden’s Bar.

Trip to Carndonagh – song by Conan & Matthew

“There’s a small town in the heart of Inishowen, it’s got ten pubs and a defibrillator that looks like a phone. Etc. Etc”

After moving back to her homeplace on the Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal with her young family, journalist Kathy Donaghy’s life changed in ways she never saw coming.
Available from O'Brien Press.

In Gaffs[slang for Houses], housing expert Rory Hearne urges us to think about the people behind the statistics, and shows us that there is a way towards a future where everyone has access to a home.
Available from Easons.

Bernie Sanders takes on the 1% and speaks blunt truths about a system that is fuelled by uncontrolled greed, and rigged against ordinary people.
Available from the Book Repository.

Also view his interview on Sky News(Sun 26th February 2023)

by Eoin O’Broin TD on “living with the legacy of the Celtic Tiger” spells out the need for a National Building Control Office to regulate house building.
(SF abstained from a vote to privatise public land for housing. Sitting on the fence will not solve the housing crises).
Available from the Irish Academic Press.

Supermarkets
(what’s really going on)?

I’m not interested in eating sausages
Made from wood
Or eating other chemical compounds
That you call food

I don’t want to eat a loaf
That stays fresh for seventeen days
Or crunch down on a cucumber
That’s never felt the sun-rays

I don’t want to feed my children
Chicken that’s come from a 3D printer
Or drink someone else’s urine
That’s gone nine time through a filter

I’m not going to jump
Into a pool of crocodiles
So why do you expect me
To participate in your
experimental food trials.

Be off with you

By Nmar
March 2024

Death by Silence

Does it matter if you’re Palestinian
Or Israeli
When the blood flows from your veins
And all that remains is a corpse
The feelings of life disappear
And the unbearably stench
Of inhumanity
Endures

Those left behind suffer the consequences of evil
Those left behind die a different death
Soaked in the blood of consequences

Death in Death
Carnage on Carnage
Can you not feel the pain
Can you not raise a scream in protest
Your Silence is a Lethal Bomb

Do not “god me” because that is
Nothing but a childish Whimper
To temper your culpability by delusion
You can not pray away your guilt
At the alter of lies
Blood is on your hands
In your silence

By Nmar
January 2024

Boys And Girly Things

Fabio loved his mother’s handbag
He liked the snappy clutch
He” shoulder strapped “it for style
Tracy thought it all too much

Fabio tells us how he feels
Between the jigs and the reels

Sometime I laugh to deflect
Cross my legs and do weird poses
You accept me because I dance on rainbows
Check me out, smell the roses

It’s not for me to make a scene
I’m the person l’ve always been
The clothes I wear the glittery dress
My granny call me her little princess

Well dad prefers to disengage
Accepts that ,”it’s all the modern rage”
Granddad would summersault in his grave
“Catch yourself on” behave.

I flash my lashes at boys and girls
Do fancy steps with swags and twirls
On the catwalk I earn my keep
Dare to Judge or dare to leap

The challenge ,is for you, not me
Abound with style my own decree
You Wish I fitted in your tailored space
Alas, that’s not my favoured place

By Nmar
December 2023

The Beacon

The deep blood rose stole my eye
at the bottom of the garden
where the tall trees grow
to touch the sky

Like a beacon
It captured my attention
“I can snip you one of those “
a lady whispered
“No “I said
Resenting her intervention

That beauty reminds there
Your disruption an intrusion
That beauty belongs there
Leave it’s wonder for all to share

When autumn gathers in the harvest
And winter is knocking at the door
You surrender to dormant shelter
Then in Spring
from slumber reawakened
Your beauty to restore

By Nmar
October 2023

Refugees

They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or I
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way

(now read from bottom to top)

Poet: Brian Bilston

Closing out the Door

Martin plays the bodhran
he talks to everyone
He has an old turf spade hanging on the kitchen wall
“Reminds me of my father he says” he loved saving the turf ye know
All I can think off are midges, clegs and my back bent like a bow.

Hens are pecking at the door
where a lazy dog snores, “ he youst to bark at strangers
“but now he’s spends the days slouching “
Maybe ill get a cat
Not much chance of that.

The nights are coming in
I can feel the winter in my bones
I’ve enough turf to keep the kettle on the boil
And a hot toddy to warm me toes

Sheila comes around of an evening
With a bit of supper and a chat
I wonder if I should thank her
Or just take it , and that be that.

A tinker taught me the bodhran
he youst camp along our lane
I was told to “stay away”
but I didn’t
Later his daughter took my name.

I’m closing out the door now
it may get that dog to shift
No one else will call sure
it’s that time of night

But I’ll leave the door on the latch
Just encase you’d never know
someone coming from the town
Might see the kitchen glow.

by Noel King
July 2023

The Curlew

I heard a curlew across the bog
when I was ten years old
The peat smelled fresh , just cut that day
My father said , we do not want the curlews pay

I heard a curlew across the bog
when the rain fell softly on sorn hill
My father said , it time to go
the curlews curse has won the day

I heard a curlew across the bog
when I slept soundly in my bed
The sheets smelled fresh just washed that day
My mother said they never came this way.

by Nmar
June 2023

A Dip at Stragill( on a sunny day in March )

Gathered together in seclusion
Not eager to bare our white hips to the sun
Doffing our garments
dressing in makeshift trunks
firing ribald comments, just for fun.

The crack
The sheer excitement.

All together, A marauding hoard
Racing, racing breathless
towards the waters edge
“Last one’s insa rotten egg
Last one insa rotten egg

First splash was icy cold
The shock engulfed our shivering bodies
We retreated, a routed army
But our courage was not long subsided
We returned and faced the advancing waves

Plunging in and ducking down
We endured
We taunted the goodie goodies who paused to stare
We challenged, though foolhardy, would they dare.

Our boisterous laughter echoed across the sands
The crack
The sheer excitement
You should have been there.

by Noel King
April 2023

Day of Rage – Documentary

40 minutes
about January 6th 2021 Washington USA
The day Trump supporters attacked the US Capital.
New York Times Visual Investigations Unit and Malachy Brown.
Dave Fanning says “if you are going to watch one documentary this year, let it be this one.”

The Wonder

The Wonder - based on the celebrated 2016 novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue.
It tells the story of 11 year old girl who survived without food, the question is did she survive on “manna from heaven”

Ireland’s Native Trees - a series of ten shorts.
They were filmed by Charlie Joe Doherty in Glenveigh National Park and narrated by Aengus Kennedy of NatureNorthwest.
Episodes:
1 - Oak 2 - Scots Pine 3 - Wych Elm 4 - Birch 5 - Rowan 6 - Aspen 7 - Hazel 8 - Holly 9 - Alder 10 - Common Ash

Turning Point

Turning Point The event was not confined to one day but was a result of years of hate.
Preview on

Mooney Goes Wild – RTE Radio 1 every Monday @ 10pm.