Here are two panels from the Donegall Road bridge at Roden Street both concerned with working life in the area in years gone by. The (uncredited) words at the bottom of the first board come from a Bill Clinton speech. At greater length, it goes “I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work. Work organizes life. It gives structure and discipline to life. It gives meaning and self-esteem to people who are parents. It gives a role model to children …”
The second features two stanzas from a poem called here “The Weaver’s Prayer” but also known as “The Master Weaver”, “The Weaver”, and “Just A Weaver”, and commonly though not unanimously attributed to one Benjamin Malacia Franklin in the 1940s; it is here said to have been penned by a “female Ulster weaver in 1922”: “Not ’til the loom is silent, and the shuttles cease to fly, shall God unroll the canvas, and explain the reasons why. The dark threads are as neatful, in the weaver’s skilful hand, as the thread of the gold and silver, in the pattern he has planned.”
See previously: The Thread Of History which features two reflections on life as a female weaver.
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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01848 X01854 “are as needed” “are as needful”
Extramural Activity 