Are We There Yet

by Carmel Daly

It’s Easter Monday 2023 celebrating 25 years of of peace in the Good Friday Agreement

“Are we there yet?”….

In the archive of 75 years prior we touch
poems from Brothers and Sisters.
Written in blood.
A harp from a cow’s hip bone.
Letters from a far off place.
Bishop says No.
Uniforms died in an for.
Both sides of a not so civil war.
Meanwhile a harp is silenced
Where 100 years ago its notes
Melodiously carried above the screams
of women and the cries of men.

Reproduced with kind permission of the author. This poem was composed in Poetry as Commemoration workshops held at Wexford Archives  on 20th and 27th of March 2023. The workshops were led by writer Mark Granier and archivist Gráinne Doran.