AMONGST the literary highlights of this year’s Féile an Phobail is the launch of Eamon Cunningham’s poetry collection, Halfway House.
A retired west Belfast schoolteacher and former native of Kilkeel, Cunningham’s collection is in part a celebration of the people and places that shaped his development as a youth in this unique landscape, between the Mourne mountains and the sea.
His story charts a journey from the home-place to College in Manchester, to a teaching position in a large boys’ school in west Belfast, set against the backdrop of the protracted conflict.
Cunningham believes his poetry is more vivid because of these life experiences.
“Many of my contemporaries lived within this geography, our place on land or sea, but perhaps because I moved away, I’ve locked in the incidents and images that remain important to framing my own story and those of my ancestors.”
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Reflective in tone and theme, Halfway House transports readers back in time with his memories of the experiences and characters of his childhood, from learning to ride a bike to tuning in through the bannisters to late night stories between adults downstairs.
“You acknowledge those things that shaped you. The big influencers, parents, family, school, the Church, politics of loyalty and ownership, the friends, the picture houses, the Vogue and the Mourne, and landscapes of the Kingdom, especially the harbour, and those men, and another school friend, who lost their lives to the sea.”
Speaking about his journey towards his first collection, Cunningham recalls his first early attempt into poetic journalism occurred in 1958 “when a tornado raced across our town leaving a wide trail of destruction”.
His craft has been honed in more recent years after being invited to join the writer’s group at the Seamus Heaney Centre QUB, under the guidance of Ciaran Carson.
One of six children, reared in Newry Street, Kilkeel, he is delighted to use his brother Peadar’s painting for the cover of Halfway House, a typical Mourne settlement on the road to Spelga which opens out onto the mountain landscape of Slieve Muck.
“My brother’s picture for me just seemed to have the right accord with the content and resonates, especially the number of memory pieces celebrating people and places like the Drover, or the Pound field, sadly no longer part of rural activity, or tapestry,” he adds.
Launching at Féile an Phobail, sales from the book will be donated to humanitarian relief in Gaza.
