Sceon, Tost, Seachantacht

Publication Instance Details #1735

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes

Details

Human Rights Issues	War HR & Colonisation/Colonial Legacies Death Penalty/Unlawful Detention/Incarceration HR & Weapons of Mass Destruction (incl. nuclear) Terrorism/War on Terror
War / Genocide Referenced	War: Global War on Terrorism War: Iraq War and Insurgency
Irish Context	Emigration (from Ireland)
Languages	Irish
Genre	Short Lyric
Medium	Print Journal
Paratext Text	14/15 Iúil 2005
Notes	This poem was written in the wake of the London Bus Bombings of 7 July 2005, and the speaker of the poem opens with an account of how he himself was twenty minutes away from being caught up in the bombings. He explains why terrorism began - due to the American and Saudi efforts to expel the USSR from the Middle East by funding radical fundamentalist groups. The speaker mentions other aspects of the War on Terror: the Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo prisoners; the plight of the Palestinian people; the massacre of Falluja by American troops in the early days of the Iraq War, and how these are portrayed in the media. There is mention of the Irish emigrant community as well in the poem, and a reference to William Dunbar's description of London as 'flower of cities all'. He was a Scottish poet and ambassador to England in the 16th Century.