To School Through the Fields

It was a great privilege to meet Alice Taylor, surely one of Cork's most famous writers, at the 'Rambling House' (song, music, poetry & sketches) in Dan Hourigan's last night, part of Scullysfest. Alice is a great-niece of Susan Taylor, HKP George Hennessy's second wife, and her book - To School through the Fields - gave me a real 'feel' about the day-to-day world all my men came from. Alice, of course, is writing about a somewhat later time, but life changed little over the period, and the world she captured and portrayed in the 1940s and 50s was little different to that half a century earlier. Alice read two of her poems capturing those times and we heard others set to music.

Later there was more music - a great session, with 30 or more musicians of all ages giving us the tunes of this part of north Cork. (The green thing is bunting, in case you're wondering!)