RISING FROM THE FLAMES

PREFACE “Rising from the Flames” is a collection of 54 poems drawing on writings from my travels in Ireland combined with subsequent reflections turned into verse. Some of these poems featured in the first collection of Celtic poems, “Onwards and Upwards” which was first published in 2021 while “Na Laethe Bhi,” “Columcille” (aka “Columba”) and “Finnbar’s Forest” feature in “The Onward Journey,” the book of longer Celtic poems also published in 2021. To this has been added several haikus which are included in the two books of haikus being published in 2022 and a series of triolets recognising the important of the early Celtic saints from the late fifth to early seventh centuries in Ireland. Other poems such as “A Day in Ireland,” “To an Irish Poet” (a tribute to W. B Yeats), “Gougane Barra” and “Rising from the Flames,” which provides the title for this collection, were written separately to the earlier publications. The book represents an attempt both to recognise the suffering that Ireland has experienced historically at several levels and also to recognise its contributions through its many canonised figures to early Christian Celtic thinking and culture. Other poems such as the Skellig poems, “On Mizen Head,” “Autumn Migrants” and “Dawn Hunt” also try to incorporate something of the rugged landscape and often turbulent nature which are evident in Ireland. I hope the reader will capture something of the essence and flavour of Ireland’s richly pervasive history and culture.