Hello - Welcome to Tuam Creative Writers'
The Tuam Pen Club, that has now been expanded and rebranded as Tuam Creative Writers, attracted a wide range of people both men and women, young and old, workers, carers, immigrants and retired people.
Like the population in general we brought a wide range of experience to the club, enjoyed a variety of hobbies and pastimes and drew on our memories of home life as well as of travel and exile.
The common denominator was a desire to write and, in the process, to recall and remember, to make sense of our experiences while at the same time developing an appropriate style. We are ordinary people trying to do something extraordinary.
"Enjoy reading some of our recent work."
THE MESMERIC WEB
THE MESMERIC WEB Years ago, I got a phone call from an old friend asking if I had the words of a poem called
I talk to myself
I Talk To Myself all the time in the language of solace. When the seasons come to the meadows and I note the beauty of
Summer
The fluty notes of the birds in Summer shock me while I eavesdrop in the garden on one of those mornings when courage unfolds from
Mick
It was a typical autumn day, early September 1987,quite windy but good sunshine to ripen the oats in the far field. Paul and Peggy had
California Valley Quail. In Tuam?
Journal Friday 30th October, 2020 at 7:40 a.m. Looking West from my window at nautical dawn I saw four birds resting on a roof
Climate Change
It was a Sunday in early February 1990. The access road to our house has a drain running on one side. This drain had burst
POST CATHOLIC IRELAND
POST CATHOLIC IRELAND My grandaunt, Kate Darcy, was born in 1890 in the shadow of the Slieve Aughty mountains. She had only a few words
To Coming Times
And when the good times return again we’ll meet for a beer or a well-made coffee. We’ll visit the old shops and try
Tyto Alba (Barn Owl)
Out of nowhere you appear silent, shy predator of the night top of the food chain it is claimed. You are everything I don’t
“Durcan’s poetry can be at once gloomy and bright.”
I decided to set myself a challenge and read Durcans Poetry and partially answer one of daughters Leaving Cert Questions. I thoroughly agree with
Fireside Adventurer
Agony Aunts are inundated weekly with requests for help breaking up with lovers and friends, in particular women worrying about how best to break up
Connacht Football Final in November
In the Sawdoctors 1992 classic hit song “Hay Wrap” the protagonist asks “Will Galway bate Mayo”.In the next line the reply comes in the negative,
Riding the Rails
The provision of public transport is one of the keystones of government policy. This despite the fact that public transport is generally a loss-making enterprise.
WE ?
A politician rose to the podium and said, “great work, WE did it, WE flattened the curve”, as in the Covid-19 infections peaks and troughs.
JUST LIKE THAT
JUST LIKE THAT In many respects he was not a nice man. He was a chronic alcoholic, an unfaithful husband, a wife batterer and, for
The Night the Magic Died: forty years since John Lennon was murdered
My mother entering my room to wake me with a death notice became a bit of a habit in my teenage years. In 1977, it
With Orwell, footing turf
I pray for rain to drive us from the bogand for the sun to come out againin time for games of gloryon a neighbour’s sloping field.But the sun beats
A Note to the “Anti-Vaxxers”
The undoubted good news of the imminent arrival of a vaccine, or vaccines, to combat the scourge of the Covid 19 epidemic, has prompted me
Exploring The Stables
On a fine spring morning one February, I made my way towards The Stables on Chalk Farm Road in Camden. As I approached, I was
THE COUGHMAN
Our father’s Hillman takes up our whole garage so we can’t put on a play, or have a Beano and Bunty comic sale