After three years
of work I am delighted to finally let Bone Road (Arlen House) into
the light of day.
My great-grandparents, Philip and Mary
Heveron and their six children, one of them my grandmother, left Elly Bay in
North Mayo in 1883 as part of an assisted emigration scheme to give them a
better life in Rhode Island, USA. My great-grandfather was given work at one of
the cotton mills. But for some reason, they couldn’t settle and returned less
than two years later.
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| Photo courtesy of Peter Moore |
Here is a sample poem from the book:
Hunger for
Somewhere Else
They’re glad to
see the back of
all the wind-crippled whins,
turn their heads from
the rain over Achill head,
smoor the final
fire.
They’ve had their bellyful
of stinking haulms,
grateful now to hand back
their hungry
piece of grass to the landlord
and watch the
dog on a scatter of stone,
a fetch in the
tumbled-down scailp,
a fling of
dunlins on sand
waiting for the
boat to sail.
My deepest
gratitude to Alan Hayes of Arlen House for another beautiful publication and to Charlotte Kelly for the perfect cover image.
I also wish to
acknowledge the assistance of Galway County Council who awarded me an Individual Artist Award in 2019 to work on the first draft.
