Joe recalls Bits and Pieces of life

O’CALLAGHAN’S Mills author and poet, Joe Moroney, has just published his third book, Bits and Pieces.
The book features more than 20 poems, as well as songs and words of wisdom.  Joe also shares many a life lesson reminding us that life is a precious gift.

 

His poetry flows in a very lyrical way, it is both spiritual and personal but above all his poetry is accessible to all. His poems offer a means of escape from reality, whether it be the chance to get lost in nature or taking a nostalgic trip down memory lane. In his telling of a story through poetry or prose, he reminds us to love, to laugh and to cry but above all to stay true to ourselves and our emotions.

“The poetry I write is about life, it’s either about personal stuff or it’s stuff I experience with other people or it’s about nature. They are the things I’m interested in,” he told The Clare Champion.

With such a vast collection of poetry built up since his last publication Butterfly Fields in 2002, Joe says he is very happy with this latest collection.

“It’s like doing a patchwork quilt, it looks funny at first but when it all comes together, it works so well,” he said.

County Clare and his native O’Callaghan’s Mills features very prominently in the book, as his youth is recollected in many of his works.

“Back in the mid-1940s, rabbits were plentiful and a great source of meat for those who could not afford to buy fresh meat. I went hunting every chance I got with my neighbour, Sean Moloney. Hunting after rabbits with dogs and greyhounds was a great way to pass a Sunday afternoon. We traversed every field, wood and bog in the area around my home,” Joe recalls.

Despite having lived outside the county for a number of years and having returned only in recent years, Joe still knows every nook and cranny and summons up these recollections in his poem I Know.

“I know every gap, ditch, drain and landmark around my native Kealderra. I recall those happy times, the fun the chase and the shouts, up hills down glens, across bogs and streams,” he explained.

These images inspired him to write the poem, giving the reader a glimpse into that early experience of those places.

Another of his poems, Memories of the Blacksticks, called after the pub in O’Callaghan’s Mills, recalls a time when he was seven or eight in the early 1950s when he looked forward to going to the local shop for messages or paraffin for the wall lamp.

“Many a time I was treated to a bottle of lemonade or loaf of bread and strawberry jam. I was fascinated watching Molly pulling pints with the long handle and listening to the chatter from the bar. Images of these scenes have stayed with me ever since,” he outlines in the book.

While Clare features prominently, Joe also recalls his days in Tipperary, where he worked as a forestry official for many years. While there, he was taken in by the rich scenery it had to offer, particularly along the banks of the Suir which inspired Beautiful Suir, which he later put an original air to.

“I have been to many of its scenic areas and walked along its banks. There is still an old track, now a walking path, from Carrick-on-Suir to Clonmel. Coal was brought in barges pulled by horses up the river to Clonmel in the distant past,” he explained.

His poem Time Changes Everything, inspired by an old derelict house high up in the Ogonnelloe hills, is one of raw emotion, which Joe shares so openly throughout this book.

“It was almost 60 years previous, at the age of nine or 10, that I was sent there herding cattle in Mrs St Lawerence’s place. My saddest memory is of being there with that weeping old woman over Christmas… Now the mountains and uplands are all planted and the old house is overgrown. As the memories came flooding back, they brought tears of the pain and loneliness that had been locked away in my subconscious all these years,” he recalled.

He revealed his writing is not subject to exaggeration, he doesn’t sugarcoat and allows his feelings to come through as they are.

“What you see is what you get, this is me. No pretences,” he concluded.