Paul Durcan

Paul Durcan

1. Nessa

   • Quotes
     • She took me by the index finger And dropped me in her well. And that was a whirpool, that was a whirpool, And I very nearly drowned.
       • Take off your pants, she said to me, And I very nearly didn't;
         • She was a whirlpool, she was a whirlpool, And I very nearly drowned.
   • Themes
     • Love
       • Relationships
   • Dramatic
     • Anecdotal
       • Romantic adventure
         • Giddy experience of falling in love

2. The Girl with the Keys to Pearse's Cottage

   • Narrative
     • Teenage infatuation
       • Loss
         • Identity
   • Themes
     • Love
       • Suffering
         • History / Memory
           • Travel / Journeys
   • Quotes
     • When I was sixteen I met a dark girl; Her dark hair was darker because her smile was so bright;
       • Of bare brown rooms and on whitewashed walls Photographs of the passionate and pale Pearse.
         • Often she used linger on the sill of a window; Hands by her side and brown legs akimbo;

3. Wife Who Smashed Television Gets Jail

   • Humorous
     • Mock journalistic report
       • Modern family life
   • Themes
     • Relationships
       • Suffering
   • Quotes
     • 'She came home, my Lord, and smashed in the television; Me and the kids were peaceably watching Kojak
       • I didn't get married to a television And I don't see why my kids or anybody else's kids Should have a television for a father or mother,
         • Justice O'Brádaigh said wives whoo preferred bar - billiards to family television Were a threat to the family which was the basic unit of society As indeed the television itself could be said to be a basic unit of the family
           • Jail was the only place for them. Leave to appeal was refused.

4. Sport

   • Troubled relationships
     • Father and son
   • Themes
     • Relationships
   • Quotes
     • There were not many fields In which you had hopes for me
       • I was a patient In B wing. You drove all the way down, Fifty miles, To Mullingar to stand On the sidelines and observe me.
         • I was fearful I would let down Not only my team but you.
           • Men with gapped teeth, red faces, Oily, frizzy hair, bushy eybrows
             • I made three or four spectacular saves, Diving full stretch to turn A certain goal around the corner
               • Sniffing your approval, you shook hands with me. 'Well played, son.'
                 • Seldom if ever again in your eyes Was I to rise to these heights.

5. Father's Day, 21 June 1992

   • Train journey
     • Reflection
       • Adverse effect of time on Durcan's role as husband and father
   • Themes
     • Travel / Journey
       • Relationships
         • Time
   • Quotes
     • Just as I was dashing to catch the Dublin - Cork train, Dashing up and down the stairs, searching my pockets, She told me that her sister in Cork wanted a loan of the axe;
       • 'OK. There is a Blue Cabs taxi ticking over outside And the whole world inspecting it, I'll bring her down the axe.'
         • I felt uneasy. Guilt feelings. It's a killer, this guilt. I always feel bad leaving her But this time it was the worst.
           • Two weeks of having the bed to herself, Two weeks of not having to be pestered By my coarse advances, Two weeks of not having yo look up from her plate And behold me eating spaghetti with a knife and fork.
             • 'I am feeling guilty because she does not love me As much as she used to, can you explain that?'
               • All the green fields running away from us, All our daughters grown up and gone away.

6. Rosie Joyce

   • Enthusiastic celebration
     • Birth - granddaughter
   • Themes
     • Joy / Hope
       • Travel / Journey
   • Quotes
     • That was that Sunday afternoon in May When a hot sun pushed through the clouds And you were born!
       • Rosie Joyce! May you some day in May Fifty - six years from today be as lucky As I was when you were born that Sunday;
         • The first yellow irises flagging roadside streams;
           • I rode the waters and the roads of Ireland, Rosie, to be with you, seashell at my ear! How I laughed when I cradled you in my hand.
             • But you saved my life. For three years I had been subsisting in the slums of despair, Unable to distinguish one day from the next.
               • Thank You, O Lord, for the Descent of Rosie onto Earth.