Bealach na Mine Buí: ix

Publication Instance Details #1972

Publication Overview

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

Details

Human Rights Issues	War Poverty/Deprivation/Lack of Sustenance
War / Genocide Referenced	War: Somali Civil War
Irish Context	Specific Irish place or place-name mentioned Other
Languages	Irish
Genre	Part Of Lyric Sequence
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	This poem is part of the lyric sequence, 'Bealach na Mine Buí' in the collection of the same title. The speaker of the poem recalls his childhood war games, and his childhood friend's jealousy of the Somali child soldier's 'real guns' on television, while he only has a plastic gun. The speaker of the poem, now older, recalls the child soldier, attempting to protect his home and keep trouble away from his family. The poem is undated, but the Somalian conflict in the poem is probably the Somali Civil War. Strong contrast between the child soldiers in Somalia and the childish war games played by the speaker of the poem in his native Árann Mhóir.