Schull-Mizen Peninsula

Here is a short poem inspired by a friend's art collection and written during a short visit to Schull. While it is now a thriving community Schull suffered hardship during the Great Famine years. 

https://skibbereenhistorical.ie/letter-written-by-dr-traill-describing-dreadful-conditions-in-schull-in-1847/

With its well annotated signboards The Fastnet Trails will not only lead you into the hills and glens around the village but also into the past. 

https://fastnet-trails.com/about-us/

  Schull library is also a vital source of information on the history of the area and at the moment is exhibiting the work of local artist Kathleen Kelly Reardon.

Instagram:kathleenkellyreardonart

https://fastnet-trails.com/fastnet-trailheads/schull-trailhead/

 

A CENTURY APART

for Liz

In the past we stood outside a casement window,

opaque, net veiled, set deep in stones

hand cupped and interlaced

light reflecting off limewash-

none penetrating the darkness within

Today we sit inside a casement

before a cosy breakfast spread

bright light from without dappling

teacup and saucer and homemade cake 

and the morning news and a vase of daffodils,

and the promise of Spring

Copyright Cathy Leonard 2025 All rights reserved

OUR SKIES-OUR SAY- NO TO DRONES

It is with alarm that I hear of the expansion of commercial drones across our airspace. 30,000 of them projected to pollute every city in Europe by 2030. And it appears to be a done deal, a question of reaching agreement about regulation- for apparently at the moment there is none. 

I would personally call for a referendum across the country on this issue. 

Our roads, our rivers, our seas are polluted in the name of so called progress and commercial enterprise. It is surely time to call a halt.....

Dublin 15 has been the testing ground for Manna Enterprise and a local petition has been drawn up by their Labour party councillor, John Walsh, to call for action in this area. For further info follow link bellow.

https://www.change.org/p/our-skies-our-say-restrict-drones-in-dublin-15-now

The word manna, by the way, comes from the Hebrew Man hu meaning- what is it? What indeed? 

And the bible describes manna as a divine gift and a symbol of God's provision- a far cry from the take-a-ways projected to fall from our skies in the near future.

Dirge for a lost world

In the time before the drones

we could look up to the sky

and see the sun rising 

and watch the clouds fly by.

In the time before the drones

moon and stars were on display-

gibbous, waxing, waning moods

and night skies' stellar array.

In the time before the drones

birdsong filled our ears

the blackbird, thrush and robin

flutes and trills allaying fears.

In the time before the drone

there was peace over this land

the only drone the sound of bees

sipping nectar from our flowers.

It's too late now to go back.

We have lost that peace and find

that the time before the drone

is a memory lost in time.

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard

Four Letters of Love-Review

 

What is it about Rotten Tomatoes, the arbiter of the fate of many a movie? Its verdict on the movie Four letters of love at 39% described as “too introspective and disjointed” (in reference to what exactly? ) is mean spirited  and unimaginative.  

The movie has its faults but the story is not one of them. Williams reminds me of the great South American writers like Jose Garcia Marquez who was hailed as someone who stunned, moved, seduced and transformed with his magical realism. Or consider the beautiful film Like water for Chocolate likewise haunting in its magical realism.

 

This is a love story where characters follow, call it the voice of God, their hearts or the dictates of fate. Apparent coincidence which turns out to be destiny is to the fore, like it was in Hardy’s fiction or in  Greek tragedy. Viewers who consider the plot unlikely or depressing have already failed to identify the genre.

 

The acting like the story is deeply heart felt. The scenery breath taking, though that aspect irritated some viewers as well. No body complained when Skellig Micheal in Star Wars was depicted as a mythical Jedi temple.

 

I concede that the musical score was at times for me intrusive and took away from the narrative. The script has its own musical cadence and did not need such embellishment. Accents were dubious at times and the aran jumpers far too new and gorgeous for 1970s Irish islanders. But these aspects of the production did not take away from the overall effect of the film.

 

It is a step into a world where the dictates of heart and soul triumph, where the human journey is depicted in all its soul searching rawness. It is a film that explores the challenging and tortuous search for love.

 

Come on Rotten Tomatoes let go to the magical realism of it.

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard

First Novel- Self Published

 

My first novel is finally published. Written nearly 30 years ago as an exercise in producing a Mills &Boon romantic page turner it morphed into something else....

The first agent I tried took it on but failed to interest a publisher and as I was then of a tender age and easily discouraged my characters languished in script in a shoebox for the next couple of decades. Hitting a Big Birthday, I won't say which one, I decided to shake the dust off it and try again. Hence the self publishing course I did last year. See my blog on this

 https://bake-a-yarn.blogspot.com/2024/10/self-publish.html

The story is set in Blackrock, Co Dublin some time between 1980 and 2005, my secondary school teaching era. It does travel as far as Lamb's Head, Caherdaniel, Co Kerry and the cover photograph was taken there by me on one of my sojourns. 

The plot follows the antics of three members of the teaching staff of Seapoint High, a fictitious school, and also the carry-on of some of the school kids, teenagers whose behaviour I was familiar with first hand! 

 The book is available to purchase on Amazon. Follow link and do leave a review if you decide to purchase.

Amazon-Don't Rule me Out

Skellig Michael taken from Lamb's Head Caherdaniel, Co Kerry

If I didn't have a dog

I probably wouldn't do it either

if I  didn't have a dog.

Instead I'd pump blood and pulse 

to the tune of rock beat

as I circumnavigate the park.

But I do have a dog,

and an ailing one at that,

so I stoop under branch

and trip over log

and taste meadow sweet

and rain in the air 

ponder death as bud turns

 to flower to leaf to fall

pity the wren in the beak 

of the sparrowhawk

and marvel the woodpigeon 

whose notes seem to end

half way through a bar

And yet

If I had no dog 

I too would be replete

with ear buds and smart watch

counting steps, not sheep,

as I circumnavigate the park.

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard

Finding poems in unlikely places

 

The Shopping List

They have a neat hand

I'll say that for them

and are very precise about their toilet paper,

it has to be 3 ply,

and the kitchen roll must be Blitz

and the pedal bin bags must be white,

I think they usually are anyway.

And at least at the start of the outing

they think in terms of categories,

each row of items signaling an aisle 

negotiated as if it were a bunny slope

in the grand piste that is our supermarket.

And they don't do indulgence,

apart from the crisps, not identified,

and the Miwadi, orange and pineapple.

The bread has to be McCambridge 

but the apples are left to chance, 

so much for Pink Ladies,

and the milk ditto-

can be any brand with any fat content.

The scallions must be large,

I didn't know we had a choice,

and there's a word that looks like bottle 

between the ham and the cinnamon

and here our shopper, perhaps inebriated 

at the prospect of a dram, veers off-piste

 

And the trolley begins to carve its way

from Frozen Goods to Household to Bakery,

shredding at speed over moguls

and black runs and fall lines

coming skilfully to a halt at -

the Steradent tablets, Active Plus

So someone with dentures

Someone of my vintage 

Someone who forgets to take their shopping list home

Whereas I forget to bring mine to the shops.

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard

Grace

 

The day you fell in love

the skies opened

shed a deluge over the treetops,

the long grass, the wildflower meadow,

over us as we walked beneath the trees' awning

steeped in grace.

The trees danced in the light of it.

The dog's coat gleamed like a seal's.

We stood for a while our feet rooted

in  a soil that was opening up -

to the beat of life on leaf

to the blessings it spoke of

to the love it bestowed -

and we felt at last release.

We had waited a long time for this day

Copyright 2025 Cathy Leonard