The Writers' Square

Today the post should have been dedicated to the St Anne's Cathedral of Belfast, located in the Cathedral Quarter, the photos are already ready...but well, in am not in the mood of writing and then tonight I let who is better than me with words to speak .

We are in the Writers' Square, in front of St Anne's Cathedral. The square pays homage to Belfast's rich literary tradition, with quotation about Belfast by famous local writers carved into the stone underfoot.

Instead, my quotation of today is: "Love your passions, it is the only way you have to cope with the brutalization of those who don't love anymore."

"And that night there was a great reast in Cair Parval,

and revelry and dancing, and gold flashed and wine flowed,

and answering to music inside,

but stranger, sweeter, and more piercing came the music of the sea people."

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

"See Belfast, devout and profane and hard,

Built on reclaimed mud, hammers playing in the shipyard,

Time punched with holes, like a steel time sheet, time

Hardening the faces, veneering with a grey and speckled rime

The faces under the shawls and caps

This was my mother-city,

these my paps."

 Luois MacNeice (1907-1963)

"From the night of moving shadows

 To the sound of the shipyard horn;

We hail thee Queen of the Northland

We who are Belfast born."

Thomas Camduff (1886 - 1956)

"Made when the world was fashioned,

Meant with the world to last,

The glorious face of the sleeper

That slumbers over Belfast."

Alice Milligan (1865 1953)

"On his way back to the College he wandered about the city

learning the names of the street: Oxford Street, Victoria Street,

Cromac Street, Durham Street, Townshend Street, Carlisle Circus,

and he thought of the island names - Lagavristeevore, Killaney, Crocnacreeva,

Carnasheeran, Crocaharna - words full of music

and he said them out aloud to himself as he went along."

Michael McLaverty (1907 - 1922)

 

"I should have made it plain that I stake my future
on birds flying in and out of the schoolroom window,
on the council of sunburnt comrades in the sun, 
and the picture carried with singing into the temple."
John Hewitt (1907-1987)

"Ireland is a very lovely country.
Indeed, there is only one thing wrong with it,
and that is that the people that are in it
have not the common-sense to live in peace
with one another and with their neighbours."
Robert Lloyd Praeger (1865 - 1953)

"Here's yellow - man*, an' tuffy sweet,

Girls will ye taste or pree it;

An aul' wife crys gaun through the street,

Boys treat veir sweethearts tae it."

Robert Huddlestone (1814 - 1887)

 

Do mhíle fáilte a Bhanríoghain Éire,

Go cathraigh éigseach chríche Uladh.

Mas fuar síon ar mhullaigh a sliabh,

Is grádhach díolos croidhe a bunadh.
(trad: 1000 welcomes, Oh Queen of Ireland,

To the poetic city of the land of Ulster.

If cold be the wind on its mountain-tops,

Its people’s hearts are warm and loyal.)

Roibeard Mac Adhaimh (1808 - 1895) 

Irish motto for Queen Victoria on her visit to Belfast.

 

 

* Yelloman is a chewy toffee-textured honeycomb produced in Northern Ireland