Two Cork poets publish debut collections - in their eighties

Two Cork octogenarians have just published their debut collections of poetry, proving that it’s never too late to make a foray into the literary world.

Douglas-based Mona Lynch is 85. Her collection is entitled Daily Rituals and is sometimes deeply personal as well as covering difficult themes such as famine and war.

She also writes about Cork, bemoaning the renaming of Faulkner’s Lane to Opera Lane “where neither legato nor aria reign”.

Mona, a grandmother of ten, was in the habit of occasionally writing diary-like entries whenever something traumatic happened in her life.

She also signed up for workshops at the West Cork Literary Festival every year. While at the festival in Bantry one year, she spotted an ad for the MA in creative writing at UCC and decided to apply.

“I didn’t have a primary degree. You had to write 1,500 words with your application,” recalled Mona, “I wrote a piece of memoir about growing up in Blarney.”

She was accepted onto the Master’s degree at the age of 75.

How did she find being a very mature student at UCC?

“It was 50% enjoyable and 50% scary, trying to keep up with all these young people coming from other universities. They were academic. I was basically coming from life. I was like the granny in the class.”

Mona’s life experience included working as a trained enumerator in London as well as in Dunlop in Cork. She was also a facilitator for women’s groups with the Cork Social and Health Education project.

As a schoolgirl, Mona was good at English and won a prize for a composition she wrote. “My mother would have been very encouraging,” she said.

Mona’s favourite writer is Niall Williams, while she admires Eavan Boland’s poetry. She also likes reading crime novels although she wouldn’t be interested in writing a whodunit.

Much of Mona’s collection is autobiographical. “I can only write about what I know and what I have experienced,” she said.

Mona, who is at her most productive when writing late at night, is a member of a writing group that meets monthly in the River Lee Hotel. She also attends Ó Bhéal, a monthly poetry session at the Long Valley. She was there recently at 7.30pm and didn’t leave until midnight, enjoying the readings as well as reading her own work and taking part in literary challenges.

Full of praise for her teachers and mentors, including Leanne O’Sullivan, Matthew Geden and Thomas McCarthy, Mona admits that she found writing poetry difficult initially.

“I still find metaphors and all that stuff confusing,” she admits.

But clearly, she is on the right path, having been awarded an Arts Council grant, which allowed her to have “the wonderful poet, Thomas McCarthy as my mentor.”

Mona suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. “But I don’t have time to think about it. I would be in pain if my mind wasn’t elsewhere. The writing is my cure.”

Meanwhile, Ardfallen-based Seamus Harrington recently turned 80 and is published by Revival Press. He attends the same workshop as Mona. (She is published by Cork City Libraries.)

Seamus was inspired to write poetry while at sea. This retired mechanical engineer, who worked in the motor trade and subsequently lectured at the former CIT in mechanical engineering for three decades, is a keen sailor.

His collection, Time And Tide, links time and ocean tides as unstoppable forces.

As Tom MacSweeney, marine journalist, formerly of RTÉ, and Echo contributor, writes, Seamus’s poetry “encompasses a wide spectrum of life, nature and the sea, conveying his love of the maritime sector through his own sailing knowledge and experience.

“He has been, for many years, an unstoppable force highlighting the importance of maritime matters to our island nation. His book continues this valuable work.”

Brought up on Bere Island, Seamus attended secondary school in Castletownbere, getting there on a wooden boat with an outboard engine. Without really being conscious of it, he was developing an abiding love of the sea.

Taking early retirement from his lecturing job, he started writing poetry more seriously than he had done in the past. He describes his early efforts as ‘dabbling’.

“Before now, if you asked me if I was a poet, I’d say I dabble in it,” says Seamus. “But now I can say I’m a poet.”

He recalls not being particularly good at English at school, but developed later and always read widely. One of his touchstones is Michael Smith’s book on the Irish seafaring adventurer and Antarctic explorer, Tom Crean.

“Without knowing it, it was while on a sea voyage, lying in the bunk, listening to the sounds of the sea that different phrases came to me,” said Seamus.

He talks about sailing along the Portuguese coast in terrible weather. To cut a long story short, he and the crew landed in Martinique in the Caribbean nineteen and a quarter days later. He says he hadn’t realised he had such an adventurous spirit. Writing about his adventures was something he did for fun.

“I started to put some of my experiences into poetry, without planning it or putting dates on the poems,” he explained.

“I sent them to Revival Press. They were back to me in two weeks. Half the poems were taken out. The rest became the book. It takes me weeks to write a poem. I believe in rewriting and rewriting.”

Seamus says his poetry isn’t as personal as Mona’s work. Some of it is humorous.

In his poem, Writer’s Block, he writes: ‘ Last month I had my finest hour/a sticky pad unlocked the door/I got the gist – a shopping list/it dawned on me at half past four./’