On Thursday evening the Inniskillings Museum with Fermanagh Writers hosted a centenary concert jointly in St. Macartin’s Cathedral, the home of the Inniskillings Regimental Chapel, and St. Michael’s Church to mark the anniversary of the death of Irish war poet, Francis Ledwidge. Although I had been sceptical about the project when it was first suggested to the writers group, I was delighted to see how well it all came together.
Francis Ledwidge
Francis Ledwidge was an Irish nationalist who fought for the British Army during the First World War. He was a member of the Gaelic League and he and his brother Joe were among the first to join the local branch of the Irish Volunteers, where he became friends with Thomas MacDonagh, one of the seven leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. When the Volunteers split over the issue of support for the First World War, Ledwidge sided with the minority opposed to joining the war effort.
So, what connection does Ledwidge, who was from Slane, Co Meath, have with Fermanagh Writers and Enniskillen?
Shortly after the spilt in the Gaelic League, he enlisted in the 5th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, saying: “I joined the British army because she stood between Ireland and an enemy common to our civilisation.”
He was killed by a stray shell during the Battle of Passchendaele on July 31, 1917.
The concert evening was a mix of readings of Ledwidge’s poetry, recitals of musical settings of his work by Head and Gurney, poetry which influenced him such as WB Yeats and Thomas Moore, and short talks about his military career. Enniskillen born actor and director, Adrian Dunbar drew the evening to a close by reading Seamus Heaney’s emotive poem ‘In Memoriam – Francis Ledwidge’.
Ledwidge’s birthplace, now a museum
I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this project when we first started it but I quickly became interested in the historical aspect of it. In early June, Fermanagh Writers visited Slane, Co Meath to see the birthplace of Ledwidge. While we were there, we visited his family home which is now a museum, stopped into his favourite pub in the town to chat with committee members who run the Ledwidge Museum and climbed the Hill of Slane to visit the grave of the woman he loved.
After learning a bit about Ledwidge’s life and writings, our members wrote their own poetry and stories inspired by the poet and his times. A booklet of these stories and poems was produced and distributed at the concert on Thursday.
Ledwidge’s love of his homeplace and the countryside he grew up in was something that particularly spoke to me, as I never cease to be amazed by the countryside where I live in County Fermanagh. Despite the fact that we lived a century apart, I know he would have seen many of the same sights as I do in the countryside and my contribution to the booklet sprang from this thought. I had first thought that it might be rather a chore to produce ‘writing to order’ on a particular theme but, the more I learned about the poet and his life, the easier it was to write.
Adrian Dunbar singing Fare Thee Well, Inniskilling
My poem, Waiting To Be Called, was inspired by the mutual love of nature that Ledwidge and I share, and also by a letter that Ledwidge wrote home in July 1917. He was hoping for leave which was long overdue for his unit after seven months on active service. In the letter, he said that he may be home again soon and added, “In fact, I am only waiting to be called home.” His hope was never realised, of course, as he died on the 31st of the same month.
After the commemorative concert, the evening was rounded off by music and poetry in Blakes of the Hollow. Pat McManus and his band provided the music, Adrian Dunbar sang a rousing rendition of Fare Thee Well, Inniskilling, the 5th Royal Inniskilling Guards regimental march, and members of Fermanagh Writers shared the poems we had written.
It was a great evening and the inspiration I drew from the project will spill over into my other writing.
Twenties, a century ago, when hemlines go up and morals plunge, when every bright promise brings a dark underside. Prohibition brings illegal bootlegging and gangsters, while big-time sports attracts gamblers and the fixing of the 1919 World Series. At the center of these powerful forces stands Babe Ruth, the awesomely talented man-child who is reinventing baseball as a power game.
history. His first historical work told the story of the writing of the Constitution (“The Summer of 1787”). It was a Washington Post Bestseller and won the Washington Writing Prize for Best Book of 2007. His second book (“Impeached”), grew from a judicial impeachment trial he defended before the United States Senate in 1989. “American Emperor: Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America” explored Burr’s astounding Western expedition of 1805-07 and his treason trial before Chief Justice John Marshall. “Madison’s Gift: Five Partnerships That Built America” debuted in February 2015. He has received the 2013 History Award of the Society of the Cincinnati and the 2016 William Prescott Award for History Writing from the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America.
artists, under the tutelage of the great Leonardo da Vinci, who must navigate the treacherous life of 15
Island. In addition to writing, teaching writing, and reviewing for literary journals, Donna works as a model and actor; highlights of her work include two seasons on Showtime’s Brotherhood and an appearance in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. Donna is the proud mother of two sons, one a future opera singer, the other a future chef.
Archer series, my new crime series follows Kate Clifford, a young widow from the northern border with Scotland, as she navigates her way through the clash between the royal cousins King Richard II and Henry Bolingbroke. The first book in the series, The Service of the Dead, is set in winter, 1399, as rumors spread that King Richard declares that his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, has forfeited his right to the inheritance of his father, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Such a betrayal will not go unchallenged by the Lancastrian heir. A civil war is inevitable. That’s the historical backdrop.
And I’m having fun with this young widow determined to choose her own future. Kate’s household includes a former assassin turned cook, a burglar turned maidservant—both fiercely loyal to her, a pair of Irish wolfhounds, and her late husband’s two bastard children—whom Kate loves as her own. With such martial/criminal/animal protection you would think no one in their right mind would mess with Kate, but her life is complicated and her past even more so. And, of course, there are many people not quite in their right minds, especially in the midst of civil war, which begins in the second book, A Twisted Vengeance.
history, and has continued to study the period while working first as an editor of scientific publications and now for some years as a freelance writer. Candace has published 13 crime novels set in 14th century England, Wales, and Scotland. The Owen Archer series is based in York and currently extends over 10 novels beginning with THE APOTHECARY ROSE; the most recent is A VIGIL OF SPIES. The Margaret Kerr trilogy explores the early days of Scotland’s struggle again England’s King Edward I, and includes A TRUST BETRAYED, THE FIRE IN THE FLINT, and A CRUEL COURTSHIP.
Today is Canada Day and my homeland is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of the modern nation. Although I’ve lived away from the country of my birth for almost half my life now, if I’m asked, I still immediately identify myself as Canadian.
It seems appropriate that last week, as Canada Day neared, Tracey Warr at The Displaced Nation invited me to chat with her about my experience as a writer living away from my homeland. I talked about where I come from and how my past and present influence my writing. If you want to know more about the interview you’ll 
parents and the town of Stony River where far too many know she was sexually assaulted as a teenager. Deliverance arrives in the form of marriage to the charismatic, twenty-six-year-old Ronald Brunson, a newly ordained Methodist minister who ignites in her a dormant passion for social justice. He tells her war and racial discrimination are symptoms of the “moral rot” destroying the country, conjuring up something dark and rancid in her mind, thrilling in its wickedness. He sweeps her away from New Jersey to serve with him at a church in a speck-on-the-map prairie town in Minnesota. What lies ahead for her over the next seven years is the subject of Tricia Dower’s penetrating study of a marriage and a woman’s evolving sense of self as she confronts the fear that keeps her from an unfettered future. 
Tricia hails from Rahway, New Jersey. You can find her on the “Rahway’s Own” website with other individuals the town has recognized for innovation and creativity. A graduate of Gettysburg College and a Phi Mu, she built a career in business before reinventing herself as a writer in 2002. Her literary work has crossed borders and won awards. She expanded a story from her Shakespeare-inspired collection, Silent Girl (Inanna 2008) into Stony River, which was published in both Canada (Penguin 2012) and the US (Leapfrog 2016). She gave a character from Stony River her own novel in Becoming Lin (Caitlin Press 2016), now available in the US.
I was delighted to be included, with approximately 40 other writers, in 
after the fact, Blanche’s persona, experiences, and behaviors were strongly influenced by historical events that largely preceded her existence. At 15, Blanche watched her father electrocuted for a brutal and inexplicable murder. Left with her emotionally remote mother who worked as a nurse, Blanche became pretty much totally responsible for the course of her life. She did well with that charge. She became a trauma surgeon and spent her professional life at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. She did well professionally, but wasn’t good at personal relationships. Sex was good, but emotional attachments were painful and difficult. She was haunted all her life by the enigma of her father and when hurricane Katrina destroyed Charity hospital and essentially ended her career, she went to Venice, her father’s birthplace, hoping to discover more of herself and life by writing down her history and exploring the place where it all began for her father. She meets an aging count who is dying of AIDS who introduces her to his special perception of Venice and who eventually solves the riddle of her father. As the count dies, Blanche weeps for him and is overwhelmed with a new realization of who she is and the depth of her emotional strengths. So the book is the story of Blanche’s emotional and physical journey punctuated by cataclysmic acts of man and of God, eventually arriving at an understanding of who she is. 
When you open a book in a particular genre, let’s say historical fiction, crime or romance, should you be able to guess what you’re getting before you read it? On Writers Abroad’s blog today I’ve voiced my thoughts on how narrow the path is for authors when writing in specific genres and how readers might benefit if it were widened a bit. You can read the 
dianneascroft.com 