Along The Shannon River

Leitrim’s “literary heritage” is recognised by this large mural by Nik Purdy/Blow Designs (ig) in Main Street, Carrick-On-Shannon. Clockwise from top we see portraits and quotes from …

Canon [William] Slator: “You’ll never find more beauty/Peace and welcome all combined/Than along the Shannon River/where your cares are left behind.”

Nora J Murray: “There are silver waters lapping/Under arches grey and brown/When the swans come up the river/To the bridge in Carrick town”

John McGahern: “I think fiction is a very serious thing, that while it is fiction, it is also a revelation of truth.” (2000 interview)

MJ McManus: “The people came to drink the soup/Ladled from greasy bowls/They died in whitewashed wards that held/A thousand Irish souls” (from the poem ‘Eighteen Forty-Nine’)

Susan Mitchell: “No bigger than a bulrush./I beside the rushy Shannon cry./There are no children on the shore./The singing voices sing no more./The sea draws all the rivers down./And love has sailed from Carrick town.” (from the poem ‘Carrick’ – Google Books)

The monument in front of the mural is also to Mitchell.

Purdy also did Committees Of The Rich in Sligo.

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Copyright © 2024 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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