Caoineadh na Cosaive

Publication Instance Details #310

Publication Overview

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

Details

Human Rights Issues	War Gender-based violence
War / Genocide Referenced	War: Kosovo War
Languages	Irish
Genre	Short Lyric
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	Poem in which the speaker of the poem describes the 'upside-down', 'topsy-turvy' and strange nature of the natural world - for instance, the cock crowing before midnight, the horrific smell of an orchard, and the fox sleeping in the hen run. The point of the strangeness becomes clear at the end of the poem, when we are told of a young girl raping an old man in a mental institution in Kosovo. The inference is clear: it's the other way around. This could refer to many instances of rape by Serb forces (including police and army) in Kosovo during the war. The poem could also, more specifically, refer to incidents in UN-run mental institutions, in which patients were raped with the knowledge of staff.