Críona Ní Gháirbhith was born in County Clare and now lives in Dublin. She has worked in Education and Psychology. Críona founded The Psychological Society of Ireland with colleagues. She has lectured in Cambridge University, England, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg and has read her poetry informally in China, USA, and Africa. She writes in Gaeilge and English, her poetry has been published widely in journals in and around Ireland. She has also been published in England. Críona has been interviewed on RTÉ Radio, TV and on a number of local radio stations in Ireland.
Rinne sí taighde agus foilsíodh foclóir tabhachtach dá cuid i 2013 .i. Gaeilge an Chláir: Séad-Chnuasach Focal ón mBéarla.
Below are Críona Ní Gháirbhith's writtten work, all rights belong to Críona Ní Gháirbhith.
listening back
(i.m. MáirtínÓ Direáin, poet)
he hears set-dancers
women light on feet
men battering
to fiddle-music
on black-flagged floor
singers remember
troubled times
turf-fire crackles
under the thatch
now the cricket
the piper of the ashes
pipes no more
©
Ag éisteacht siar
i.m. m ó díreáin, file
Cloiseann sé damhsóirí beoga
go díograiseach i Seit an Chláir,
mná comh héadrom le cleití,
fir ag batráil ar úrlár dúlice.
ceol béil is fidile ón am atá imiṫhe.
Cuimhníonn sé ar am an anró,
ach spréachann tine mhóna go glé
sa chistin bheag chluthar cois claí,
na criogair, píobairí na gríosaí,
ina dtost go deo.
©
ScaryWary the Airwalker
Scarywary walked on air,
he was ever so elegant, he,
with green and yellow and blue-rinsed hair,
and mincing, swaying feet.
If you went to the bathroom, he snuck in too,
and politely turned his back,
but I guess he peeked when you used the loo,
which I never could catch him at.
He lost an arm as well as a leg,
and then his balance was gone,
for he was full of helium gas,
‘twas the ballast that kept him down.
One day he danced through the open door,
and drifted away to Japan,
blue jays and hummingbirds followed him too
in an aerial caravan.
Scarywary will never come back,
they’re richer by far in Japan,
and they’ve probably lots of arms and legs,
for an aerial, faerial, armless, legless,
airwalkin’ man.
Goodbye, Scarywary.
©
Easter Rising 1916
i.m. Pádraig Mac Piarais and all of those who died in the 1916 Rising
I do not cry anymore when I visit the Stonebreakers’ Yard.
I used to hear every killing shot, see the dead men fall,
red blood seeping through the stones.
I do not cry for the slaughter, those deaths now a sacred sacrifice.
A sense of love and hope and glory pervades – no sorrow.
Our own culture, music, language still live on.
©
Éirí Amach na Cásca 1916
In ómós do Phádraig Mac Piarais agus dos na daoine cróga uilig a thit i 1916