Mattresses airing at open windows -
this lingering vision has scarred his sixty years;
his abiding childhood recollection:
if it rains today, we'll all sleep wet again tonight,
his mother had traipsed this same long hall,
was told: Sit there, sign that. Give him up!
Barely two weeks earlier, she had transgressed,
screamed in labour; frog-marched to an outhouse;
legs apart, she gave birth standing over
a steel commode, torn, left unstitched;
and the cold-eyed nun moved slow from bead to bead,
asked if it now was worth the few minutes
of passing pleasure.

Kept behind locked doors and iron gates,
a hundred pounds would have bought her freedom -
its lack condemned her to a lifetime of scrubbing
floors or clothes, cutting grass on hands and knees,
mending potholes; no letters, no talk, no bras,
name changed, hair cut, experiments – other parallels;
this the penance for her whore's droppings,
atonement for leading faceless men astray,
for being pretty, for being naive,
for being woman.

And her stolen child, a chattel, shovelled
from home to foster home, exploited, ostracised,
dragged through nettles, sleeping with pigs,
whipped and flogged, pot-bellied for want of food,
unloved, unschooled, a life blighted
and the torment of not understanding why.
A thwarted search for belonging, for a lost mother,
her illegitimate children symbols
of defiance of the church’s power –
they were not meant to meet again,
all part of their shared punishment.

The search for his infant sister,
neglected to death -
where to start among the hundreds
of communal graves; no headstones,
only a home made nail in a granite wall
to mark her anonymous presence;
was she coffined in a shoebox,
was she dumped in at pit filled to the brim
with baby bones? Bastard bones, unworthy
of investigation, of explanation.

So, we resealed the slabs that hid our sad, sordid secrets;
said prayers over the uncounted numbers, the unremembered names,
then taught ourselves to forget; taught ourselves to despise
and abuse and punish girls, stole their children,
buried them without respect or dignity;
crossed ourselves, smug in a theocracy that rained
Hail Marys and Holy Rosarys and Our Fathers
from one Saint Swithen's Day to the next. Our fathers?
What of our unblamed fathers, skulking in anonymity;
what of our church that created the sin, allotted the blame,
turned our minds; what of our state, supine in its collusion,
blind-eyed to the brutality carried out in its name.
Fools, did they not know that innocence, wronged,
never rests, that we would not escape its haunting?

© Michael Gallagher.

Still in Kerry. “ The apparel oft proclaims the man. " So said the Bard. And of course, there is some validity in the line. What we wear tells a lot about us. For instance, showy clothes may suggest that the wearer is a superficial type of person. But what does the clothes choice of Irish men tell us about them? Threads by Paul Galvin enlightens us. With lines like, “Tailored suits are through we can examine men’s relationship with clothing.”

Paul Galvin was born on November 02nd 1979, in Lixnaw, County Kerry. He played Gaelic football with his local club Finuge, his divisional side Feale Rangers, and for the Kerry County team between 2003 and 2014. Galvin had the honour of being named as the 1000th All-Star Award. He also represented Ireland in the 2004 International Rules Series. As a teacher, he moulded the minds of the young in his native Kerry for years.

Then as a thirty-year-old he embarked on a new career, as a clothes designer. To date, he has created fifteen men’s collections with Dunne’s Stores. "Threads" is a well-researched collection of the stories of Irish men who were an integral part of the culture and fashions of their time. The information he collected is assimilated and written as only a north Kerryman could do it. Should this book be described as an encyclopaedia? In 1962 a schoolmate brought Indian ink back from England and I stupidly, tattooed blue spots on my fingers. Why am I telling you about my defaced digits? Because until now I didn’t know that Samuel F. O’Reilly, born in 1854 in Waterbury, Connecticut invented the tattoo gun. In the chapter "Tattooed Man" the author from Lixnaw imparts that information.

Paul’s research led him down many interesting alleyways and resulted in him going on tangents which are gems in their own right, He Tells us that Born Mad the story of Samuel Beckett, “ . . . was born and would be told through clothing. The interesting visuals brought me to research his work and life story. It was through this research that I discovered the compelling, competitive sportsman beneath the slender frame.”

The chapter "Push" is not just about clothes. We are given insight into the lives of the Walker brothers who cycled through a storm for Ireland at the Stockholm Games in 1912 and survived hails of bullets in 1916 and the War of Independence when fighting for Ireland’s freedom.

Of his Bogman collection Paul says, ”You don’t hear many designers talk about bog-holes inspiring a collection . . . the bog is not a place for most people’s creative inspiration.” But Paul Galvin is not most people. He knows about the beauty of the bog. I’ll bet he would agree with his near neighbour, Sean McCarthy, who said. “The bog is not a place. The bog is a feeling. You don’t grow up in the bog. You grow up with the bog.”

The minute I finish this piece I promise I am going straight to Dunne’s to buy something from the BOGMAN COLLECTION. And in the meantime, I’m sure Paul Galvin/Dunne’s Stores will be justified in quoting the French actress, Simone Signoret, who said, “ Chains do not hold a marriage together it is Threads” Don’t miss this 330 pages of pure delight.

Cowboy hats, blonde curly wigs and extravagant outfits you wouldn’t normally associate with Listowel were the order of the day on June 24th as the football pitch that has hosted many a GAA match is swarmed with a very different cohort of people, many covered in rhinestones and sporting cowboy boots as they contribute to setting the world record for the most amount of people “instantly recognisable” as Dolly Parton.

With over 1,137 Dolly-lookalikes in attendance, the town has set the record for the largest gathering of people “wearing a full head-to-toe Dolly Parton costume" after months of careful planning and promotions. The importance of the Dolly Day event, held in aid of Kerry Hospice and Comfort for Chemo Kerry, was reflected in the masses of crowds, who had turned up to contribute to two deserving charities, whilst having some fun doing so.

Busloads arrived from all across the country the field came alive with excitement, as everyone sang their hearts out to Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 over the speaker.

Among those in attendance was Dolly Parton’s right-hand man, and Limerick native, Mr Eugene Naughton, who has held the position as president of Dollywood since his appointment in 2019.

Liz Horgan of Finesse Bridal Wear told me, “I can honestly say Dolly Day brought such fun into so many people’s lives! It has given the town such a boost in every way. It proved yet again what a wonderful town we live in. Absolutely everyone got behind it and supported it in their own way. The minute people put the wigs on they turned into 16-year-olds laughing & skitting. In a funny way the wigs gave people a licence to step out of their comfort zone and that they did! Young & old participated.”

This Video on Dolly Day is from a news announcement on YouTube                                                 

The video produced by Tom Fitzgerald can be seen at the Blogger location of this column.  

It is expected that the Guinness Book of Records will certify the record very soon.

See you in August.