(22) 'Go hard os cionn an lána'

Publication Instance Details #209

Publication Overview

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

Details

Human Rights Issues	War HR & Weapons of Mass Destruction (incl. nuclear)
War / Genocide Referenced	War: Second World War
Irish Context	WW II (Ireland)
Languages	Irish
Genre	Part Of Lyric Sequence
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	This poem is a part of the lyric sequence, 'Seabhac ag Guairdeall', in which the poet describes aspects of his childhood, viewed through the lens of Irish neutrality during World War II. In this poem, the twenty-second section of the sequence, the speaker describes a hawk hunting above a lane. The hawk is mechanized, however, made of metal, with a clockwork heart, and an electric button for an eye. This appears to be a metaphor for aerial war machines and bombing during World War II. The metaphor is strengthened by the addition of the mouse at the end of the poem, whose 'human scream', as the hawk attacks, is described as 'freezing' the speaker.