Join us for an intimate evening around the fireside in our bookshop upstairs at 94 Lower Georges St., for an evening of readings and discussion with poet/author and great friend of the museum, Martin Swords. Time 8pm. Thursday 22nd February. Refreshments will be served from 7.30pm.

Greetings Friends, Poets and other enthusiasts, here I am back with something of an experiment.

I put together a series of Poems and Stories called Kathleen’s Child, about my growing up in Ireland.

I called it “Kathleen’s Child – a collection of Poems, and Things That Should Have Been Said. By Martin Swords.”

We then turned it into a video presentation using family photos and other pictures to bring it all alive.

You don’t have to be Irish to get it – but it helps if you know something of Irish Life and changing times in Ireland.

Perhaps it will inspire other Poets and Writers to record their views, memories and treasured recollections in this way for others to share.

Martin Swords

Kathleen’s Child

At seven, all a wonder.

The boy with his Aunt Kathleen

snug in bed, stone hot water

bottle in its blanket, keeping

October frost outside.

Streetlight shines through net curtains

casting paisley patterns on the wall.

Moving.  Changing with the breeze,

their own picture show.

Talking about the big wide world.

Tales of the Galapagos.

Exploring Easter Island

and the Pyramids.

He knew the Orinoco and the Nile.

Wide eyed wonders she told

from borrowed library books

Eyes wide opened never closed.

Thirty years later she told him

She was his mother.

It made sense.

Martin Swords June 2002

Kathleen’s Child.

Martin Swords – Kathleen’s Child

Click here to view Kathleen’s Child Film

“A Collection of Poems, and Things That Should Have Been Said..

By Martin Swords”