Cassandra Voices

Author: casswp

  • Review: Displaced in Gaza: Stories from the Gaza Genocide

    Gaza’s history since the Nakba of 1948 is punctuated by waves of forced displacement. The enclave has been the epicentre of Palestinian refugees since 1948, having welcomed Palestinians from all over the colonised territories. Since Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza began in October 2023 its entire population of over two million, in a territory of just 151 km2, has been rendered internally displaced persons.

    Displaced in Gaza: Stories from the Gaza Genocide, Edited by Yousef M Aljamal, Norma Hashim, Noor Nabulsi, and Zoe Jannuzi (Haymarket Books, 2025) is a collection of twenty-seven testimonies of Palestinians living in Gaza enduring the genocide. An immediate response upon reading through the chapter titles is: to what extent have we become desensitised as spectators or activists? And, moreover, what is the link, or disconnect, between this wider perception of a genocide occurring and a person living through it?

    It begs the question, when reading through the testimonies, after more than two years how much can our mind take before the experiences themselves, narrated by survivors, merely become background noise? With the daily recounting of Israel’s kill toll being reduced to statistical data – a roll call similar to the reporting of Covid cases that gradually desensitised the listener – can our minds link back to the human tragedy?

    Of course we should. For the chapter titles speak of a shattered, mundane reality. Birthdays morph into atrocities. Education is ruptured by bombs. A woman is widowed by targeted assassination. A husband is killed while searching for food. Entire families are wiped out. The details are so mundane, so quotidian, yet genocide is an immense, unforgivable laceration in both its experience and the memory if it. That memory should, and must, extend to the rest of us. Narratives can combat desensitisation, as long as we know what to prioritise.

    In the foreword to the book, Ahmad Alnaouq writes:

    Everyone on Gaza is now a citizen journalist, determined more than ever to confront and challenge the Western media narrative – the demonising and dehumanising of the Palestinians, the lack of agency recognised, and the distortion of truth.

    This collection of testimonies directly challenges the Western hegemonic narrative which, even while reporting the official genocide kill toll, still finds ways of sanitising bloodshed and diminishing the humanity of Palestinian survivors. The kill toll is represented in two ways – as a statistic that either supports sporadic calls for accountability or offered in support of Israel “finishing the job.”

    Yousef Al-Jamal references the Palestinian poet and academic Refaat Alareer, who was killed by Israel in 2023, and for whom storytelling was an integral component of Palestinian history.

    A Poem for Refaat Alareer

    ‘For centuries,’ AL-Jamal writes, ‘Palestinians have tended the rich oral history of Palestine, preserving cultural heritage, including folktales and stories about the land.’ This collection of narratives from the Gaza genocide is a contribution to Palestine’s oral history, and one that, due to its international dissemination, cannot be destroyed by Israel.

    The personal narratives in this book speak of a disrupted simplicity, but not a disrupted normality. This includes death or killing, displacement, hunger, the tribulations of living and enduring life under a highly militarised genocide. We find the disruption of education and attempts to teach, as well as the full spectrum of forced displacement including of a Nakba survivor, along with attempts to rebuild a semblance of normality even as Israel destroys Gaza’s infrastructure. Even before the genocide, Palestinians in Gaza faced immense hardships and restrictions which were normalised into manageable deprivation, even by international institutions.

    For many Palestinians, as evidenced by several contributors to this anthology, the large scale killing meant that families were welcoming other relatives into their midst. At times it was orphaned children, as was the case with Aisha Osama Abu Ajwa, a mother of four children who began taking care of two children whose parents were killed when Israel bombed an entire residential block. In her description of forced displacement, Abu Ajwa writes, ‘The children witnessed dozens of martyrs’ bodies strewn on the ground. They cried intensely, while blood covered the streets.’

    ‘I hope war ends soon. Eight months of continuous killing exhausts us,’ writes Fidaa Fathi Abu Yousef, whose son was killed while riding a bike just 800m away from the family home.

    Another recurring horror is Palestinians fleeing to supposedly safe zones, while Israel bombs move in the direction the displaced are heading, leaving not only a trail of displacement but bloodshed. The killing of Palestinian children, as described by the narrators of this genocide, encompass all ages. The visibility of Israel killing children is magnified when the writers note the dead children’s ages. Thus removed from the general term, the children take on meaningful identities; allowing the reader to recognise how Israel has attempted to obliterate Palestinians through its killing of the younger generations. Children killed on their birthday, children killed while sleeping, the tragedy is portrayed through the eyes of the living, bereaved and those unable to process their loss due to a perpetual quest for survival.

    Their attempt to persist in living instead of perishing at times makes the writing of these recollections and experiences become slightly devoid of emotion. Emotion almost becomes a luxury when surviving a genocide, but the almost matter-of-fact narratives in this collection make grief all the more important, not only to grasp but experience. Israel has not only wiped entire families out and lacerated others beyond repair, it has also obliterated entire psychological processes that are necessary when experiencing traumatic events. In the midst of a genocide, Palestinians are unable to experience the grieving process.

    Incessant worry about family members displaced in different locations around Gaza is another hardship Palestinians must endure. Without means of communication for the most part, relatives receive no news of each other. ‘Gaza is small, yet we have not seen each other since the war began. We have not reunited. I know nothing of my sons. My life’s dream is to reunite with them in one home before my death,’ Yusra Salem Abu Awad states in her narrative.

    The script flips to a twelve-year-old boy, Youssef Qawash, writing about how he has lost his father and uncle in a bombing and not knowing whether his father’s remains will ever be discovered. ‘My uncles have searched in Deir al-Balah and Maghazi, but no one knows where my father is buried,’ Qawash ponders, noting that his father might still be buried under the rubble of destroyed houses.

    Ireland and Palestine: A Crucial Vote Awaits

    The ramifications of starvation are reflected in Najlaa Al-Kafarna’s story. Her husband was killed while searching for food for the family on the third day of the genocide, which was their second day of forced displacement. Six other relatives were also massacred in their search for food. Her special needs son, Muhammad, is malnourished and lacks medication and physical therapy sessions.

    Throughout most of the narratives in the book, the cry for food recurs. So does the lack of basic necessities, and the wearing of the same clothes through different seasons. We find the rationing of flour, and the shelling of a school while forcibly displaced Palestinians are baking bread. The deprivation is exacerbated by employment being almost non-existent during the genocide. Profound mental health issues as a result of ongoing trauma (Palestinians cannot speak of post-traumatic stress disorder) are also a common experience.

    ‘This war is larger than the 1948 Nakba. I am 91 years old,’ Mohammed Abdul Jabbar Abu Seif says. Aged fifteen, he experienced the first Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine and he notes the differences between the specific targeting of Zionist paramilitaries in 1948, and the widespread destruction of the current genocide in Gaza. One of the few remaining survivors of the Nakba, he narrates his experience of displacement in 1948 and how his family settled in Gaza in the Nuseirat camp. ‘My testament to my children and grandchildren is to never leave Gaza. We cannot leave Gaza, and we cannot migrate again,’ Abu Seif asserts, noting the miscalculation in 1948 of an eventual return and of leaving to save their lives.

    Narrating the Israeli colonial aggressions he has experienced throughout his life, he describes the genocide as ‘a war of extermination and destruction of humans and nature.’ The description is far more tangible than the word genocide will ever be, particularly now that the international community has diluted its meaning to preserve Israel’s impunity. A destruction of humans and nature is something that anyone anywhere in the world can easily envisage. This narrative brings the consequences of destruction, as well as fear, to the reader’s mind.

    The entirety of this anthology also serves to highlight what a vibrant society Palestinians in Gaza had created before the genocide. Education stands out in particular as one of their achievements. Indeed the tenacity to attempt to study and teach throughout the genocide is remarkable. Ambitions are currently stilted, but dreams are still cherished, An awareness of the many hurdles to overcome in order to create a healthy society post-genocide is also to the fore in many narratives in this collection. As the UNSC hands over the rebuilding of Gaza to the U.S. administration, thus prolonging the genocide, these testimonies will stand in opposition to the U.S.-Israeli narrative. More importantly, they are a sliver of testimony from Palestinians that neither the U.S. nor Israel, have the power to annihilate.

    Feature Image: Ahsanul Haque Z

  • Musician of the Month: Ciara O’Donnell

    Ciara O’Donnell is an artist performing under the name of Domhan. She creates music inspired by her love of the Irish Celtic spirit, shamanism and Eastern spirituality. She is also a member of Irish band Bog Bodies a heavy folk rock outfit unearthing ancient Irish tribal tones and rich melody through an archaeological lens. Ciara is from the West of Ireland and is inspired by world influences and reverent, magical modes of music.

    Image: Josephine Doyle / Síoraí Photogrpahy.

    My most profound early musical influences began aged of five when I was an Irish dancer and learning Irish music. At that point I was a huge fan of the Eurovision Song Contest, fascinated by how each country portrayed their culture through music and performance, using varying tones, scales, instrumentation, costume and language.

    I was blown away during the 1994 Eurovision when the act ‘Riverdance’ appeared during the interval. My whole body went into shivers hearing the etheric quality of the singers’ entrance.

    It opened a portal of remembrance in me to an Otherworld, something my logical mind knew nothing of until that point. Then came the dancers, the rhythm and percussion; the dance between light and dark; light shoe and heavy shoe; jumping toward sky and pulling up energy from the earth. I began to understand something deeper, an ancient memory and ritual of expression had been triggered.

    My soul was understanding the true meaning of dance, music, creation and a traditional influence merged with contemporary culture. A sound of the past, but fresh to a modern era. The music was a journey to a beyond timeline.

    I was only aged five and couldn’t intellectualise it, or understand fully what its meaning was to me. All I knew was that I was obsessed.

    From that point on I watched the Eurovision religiously every year, but nothing hit me in quite the same way, although I still loved absorbing new learnings through this cultural lens.

    I then began obsessively re-watching on video the full ‘Riverdance’ show in full. My mind opened further through encountering its mysticism, and the power of a hands free Irish dance adopting innovative Irish traditional and a new pulsating other-worldly influence. I had never heard anything like it.

    I am forever influenced by Bill Whelan’s fusion of World music, rooted in the Celtic spirit. Nothing up to that point did it better than the innovative sound of Riverdance, sampling Irish traditional music with Eastern European influence, Spanish flamenco, Jazz, Persian and Indian scales. I was blown away by its power to evoke so much through melody.

    As a teen I experienced another shiver moment after being given a compilation CD with the song ‘Return to Innocence” by Enigma.

    Once again I had never heard anything like it. This song hit something deep inside my core, and again this piece was on repeat, as I encountered a world music sound that had something else: a prayer, a majesty, a life, an essence.

    This became my spur to create music with a spirit in it, a memory, a life, a prayer an essence through sound and form.

    Now I work on music with the artist name “Domhan” meaning ‘World’ in Gaelic Irish. World music and tonality has been a huge influence, in how it enlivens and enriches memory and allows the musical ear to be drawn by an energy of evocation.. Sound is not just sound in some World music. It can be a prayer. A profound expression of something other.

    An evocation such as this has become my life’s dream. I aspire to create music that glimmers with the mystical, offering a connection to that unseen place from which creativity arrives.

    My muse is a vision of a balanced world that once was and that could be – just as I heard in the prayer song “return to innocence’.

    My songs from Domhan are like prayers returning us to a vision of a harmony and balance with nature within, in deep connectivity with country, nation, tribe, land and planet. To be inspired from this place, and perhaps inspire from this place.

    In working on this I feel a guidance in how it wishes to be expressed, trusting my own lens and passion for Celtic Mythology, the Heart and the power of feeling and imagining.

    I have released a single called ‘Trócaire Brighid’ and EP called ‘Spirit Works’ as my debut pieces. I am currently working on a ‘Journey’ album, inspired by the elemental spirits of Water, Wind, Fire and Earth, journeying musically through their landscapes and essences.

    With Bog Bodies

    My band ‘Bog Bodies’ has also released an album called ‘Reclaim the Ritual’, weaving ancient Celtic memory, archaeological references with a tribal folk rock sound. We have been performing this album at major festivals since then, and are excited to be releasing a new album next year.

    My aspiration for the future is to make music more frequently. Music that feels like it is a gateway to the Otherworld, that helps remember another time and uplift true nature within. It’s only real because I believe it to be, and so there it is.

    Feature Image: Josephine Doyle / Síoraí Photography.

  • Musician of the Month: Cory Seznec

    It’s always been a challenge to compress my life into tidy, coherent narratives full of hidden meanings and uniting threads with distinguishable identity signposts that give audiences an obvious sense of who this person is. My artistic identity has, in many ways, been an attempt to seek some form of ‘personal style,’ by tossing together what, at face value, might seem like incongruous interests into a gumbo of my own making. In all this digging in the dark, the ‘ego’s’ quest was to forge some form of authentic artistic voice out of a chaos of unknowing. With no mentors to guide me, and no institutions to mould me, it was all very freeing, very scary and a complete mess.

    I’ll begin with the early days of ‘professional’ gigging. London 2004-2005. A young man completing a Masters in history is wondering how to break away from academia, play gigs and earn money from music. Early on in his studies he posts an ad on Craig’s List: ‘American folk musician in London looking to collaborate with any musicians who play guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, percussion, piano, and/or accordion.’

    The only response received is from an accordionist. They call each other. All the young man recalls of the conversation is wondering if the person on the other end is on a Witness Protection Program. A strong Long Island accent. They arrange to meet at the Witness’ place in south Wimbledon. They jam and are surprisingly ambitious about developing a professional project around accordion and banjo, as well as a strange percussion stick called the ‘Freedom Boot.’

    Looking back, it was at this moment that the Witness, a.k.a. Michael Ward-Bergeman, appeared to me as a clown-roshi-seeker-mentor figure, undergoing the beginning of his own transformation to another life. We started a duo and began touring, sending out millions of emails, knocking on doors and taking every paying gig that came our way. No smartphones, no GPS.

    We then recorded our first album with my brother as sound engineer over a span of four nights in the gymnasium of Harefield Hospital outside London, sleeping on chairs, with hospital guards waking us up (one was very surprised to see us when he opened the door at 6am). We printed up a thousand CDs and sold them at all our shows during our insane jaunts around the UK. It was all starting to get exciting, yet also very real. I was starting to wonder: is this my profession?

    With the Masters finished I was out of a dorm and started crashing on couches around town, before finally moving in with my future wife to a small apartment in Brooklyn, New York. There I tapped into the folk scene, worked carpentry to pay rent, and taught fingerstyle guitar and banjo at the Jalopy Theatre in Red Hook, regularly hopping over to London for tours with Michael.

    After that blip we moved to Paris, France where I soon became an intermittent du spectacle (state-sponsored artist support scheme) playing in all sorts of venues with all sorts of other musicians to get my cachets (declared gigs). During that time, I made my first trip to Africa – an unforgettable three week trip around Mali.

    But back to the U.K.. The ‘long strange trip’ continued, touring around England, Scotland, Wales, the U.S. and mainland Europe (although I never made it to Ireland!) with Michael, and the eventual addition of another brilliant, lunatic, Canadian percussionist, performance artist, sound engineer and anarchist called Paul Clifford. We went by the name of The Groanbox Boys, then Groanbox Boys, then just Groanbox. Did we grow up or shrink down? This whole trip lasted about ten years; with peaks and valleys; ebbs and flows; collaborating with classical composers and ensembles, packed out village halls, and played to two people in a pub in the Lake District; big festival crowds; hospital patients, and a wall of chavs in Yeovil not listening to a note we were playing. We made warts-and-all guerrilla records on the fly that contained both unlistenable discordance and mellifluous magic that we could sell DIY by the carloads at all these venues we navigated to with frayed roadmaps in beat up rentals from a used car dealer named Mel in Kent. Sea legs were obtained.

    The absurdity of all this is that the music and the whole ‘business’ of it might have been just some cosmic pretext to get the gods – or someone – laughing. In the van (where all the actual stuff happened) we surmised that we were living in a simulation created by a ten-year-old named Benny, who had created us on a lark. Case in point – we had asked Paul to find a tree log to play on stage, since our second album featured percussion that included the sound of logs being struck by axes and other objects. He did so with gusto, locating not just any old piece of wood, but a very strong and gnarly piece of yew. Surely Benny was behind this.

    Sacred to the Celts, venerated in Christian traditions, called the world tree Yggdrasil in Norse mythology, we became obsessed with taxus baccata, visiting yew groves and churchyards across Britain, engaging with (manifested as a worship ritual involving deep meditation, musical farting, and general obscenities) ancient yew-god avatars in some strange restorative communion during our gruelling tours (we would block book tours of 30-60 shows, performing once, sometimes twice a day, with occasional days of respite). We were totally burned-out and these yew baths were magical balms for our weary souls.

    And you thought this was about music.

    Let me jump forward 10 years to Touki, my project with Senegalese artist Amadou Diagne and London producer Oscar Cainer. We had put the project together in 2019, securing Arts Council funding to record an album as a duo at Real World Studios. All our tour dates and album release were planned for March 2020, which imploded with the Covid-19 pandemic. We picked up steam again the following year and got some more funding to record, this time with American cellist and violinist Duncan Wickel, who joined us on the road for a couple of U.K. tours. We then joined forces with Marius Pibarot for a couple of years, who was an excellent addition to the group. Earlier this year, however, Marius wasn’t available to tour with us so we called someone we all knew well. Michael Ward-Bergeman.

    Did we even call him, or did Benny make him appear out of thin air? All I know is the laughing gods were back. We were no longer just playing music but visiting ancient standing stones and cairns in remote Scotland at sunrise. Early in the tour we were joined by Little John, a clown puppet sidekick who’s accent and intonation sounds eerily like Michael’s Long Island accent in falsetto. And, always, the pairing of the numinous and the flatulent, an Ancient Monolith – High Street Curry Shop negotiation, with awe being expressed by mouths and sphincters alike.

    And you thought this was about music.

    But I digress. ‘Normal’ gigs did occur and are projected to continue to happen in my career. I’ve been teaching in music camps around the US and in France, and recorded video lessons for Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop. I released a bunch of solo records, and performed with numerous artists over the years, playing festival stages, theatres, music camps, clubs, pubs, cafés-concerts, village halls, churches, hospitals, prisons, schools, museums…in Europe, North America, Ethiopia.

    Ah Ethiopia. Another inflection point. I spent three years there (2013-16) with my wife holding down a ‘real’ job. Learned many of the Ethiopian modes, assisted on rugged and totally manic field recording trips through the highlands, held a weekly gig at Mulatu Astatke’s jazz club, hopped down to Kenya to study with omutibo guitarists, and generally had my mind slowly blown to bits. I miss it all terribly, and getting into it more than this almost seems pointless, at least until I write my memoirs.

    These experiences brought me to some realization that going back to school to study ethnomusicology might be promising for my quest. As I write this, I’m sitting in Takoma Park, Maryland and commuting everyday to the University of Maryland – College Park to sit in graduate seminars and teach undergraduates a course on World Music & Identity (this time mainly sans instrument). A new chapter, in my ‘home’ country, which now feels oddly like an alien planet.

    As for where I’m headed … who knows? If the music vibrating from within me can help people in various ways, then that’s probably good enough for me. If I can be a good dad to my kids and a decent husband, that’s probably good enough too. A recent conversation with Michael in which he stated he still ‘has no idea what is going on,’ made me think that this is what drew us together in the first place. Alongside him, Oscar, Paul, Amadou and all my other compagnons de route the hidden (and sometimes not so hidden) quest somehow seems to be an exaltation in this very unknowing. Perhaps it feels like the only real, honest thing anyone can say about anything.

    https://www.coryseznec.com/

  • Grandmothers’ Fight for Stolen Generation

    Review: A Flower Travelled in my Blood: The Incredible Story of the Grandmothers who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children by Haley Cohen Gilliland.

    Between 1975 and the first half of 1978, it has been estimated that the Argentinian dictatorship under Jorge Rafael Videla killed and ‘disappeared’ 22,000 people. As far back as 1984, the National Commission of the Disappeared People (CONADEP) estimated that between 10,000 and 30,000 people were disappeared by the dictatorship from 1975 to 1983.

    The rationale that “If they were taken, there must be a reason,” employed by Argentinians during the dictatorship in a bid for personal safety is immediately imparted in Haley Cohen Gilliland’s book, A Flower Travelled in my Blood: The Incredible Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children (Avid Reader Press, 2025). The book tells the story of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo – a group of grandmothers whose sons and daughters were disappeared by the dictatorship, and whose grandchildren were kidnapped and illegally adopted by members of the dictatorship’s state institutions.

    The book opens with the kidnappings of Jose Manuel Perez Rojo and his wife Patricia Roisinblit, who were both involved in left-wing activism and resistance with the Montoneros against the right-wing turbulence in Argentina that culminated in General Jorge Rafael Videla’s dictatorship. Jose and Patricia’s toddler Mariana was taken to her grandparents by the parents’ kidnappers. In her late stages of pregnancy, Patricia gave birth to a boy while detained at the School of Naval Mechanics, known as ESMA.

    The book focuses on the Roisinblit family as it traces both Argentina’s dictatorship history and that of the Abuelas. Rosa Roisinblit, who passed away in September this year at the age of 106, was one of the Abuelas’ founding members. For Rosa, the disappearance of her daughter and abduction of her grandson altered her existence from a person who completely avoided mention of politics to a driving force behind the organisation that openly challenged the dictatorship. At first through persistent presence and silent protest at Plaza de Mayo, the Abuelas would find themselves at the helm of exposing the systematic disappearances of dictatorship opponents and their stolen children.

    Lieutenant General Jorge Rafael Videla swearing the Oath as President of Argentina, 29 March 1976.

    Videla’s dictatorship attempted to avoid the scrutiny which the Chilean dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet ignited. Argentina obscured its description of opponents, and by doing so widened its net to encompass not only those involved in resistance but also anyone remotely linked to the disappeared detainees. The author notes, “For the junta, these covert abductions were the perfect tool: brazen enough to incite fear, but subtle enough that Argentines could pretend they weren’t happening.” As the “disappeared” started making its way into conversations and rhetoric, Videla himself utilised the word in a press conference to bolster dictatorship impunity: “The desaparecido is an unknown … they are an unknown entity, neither dead nor alive, they are disappeared.”

    Of Jewish descent but born in Argentina, Rosa at first turned to Jewish organisations and even the Israeli embassy for help, but none was forthcoming, despite the fact that many Jewish people had been detained and disappeared by the military dictatorship. Videla’s manipulation of Christian values to justify atrocities was also either tolerated or supported by the Catholic clergy in Argentina, leaving the mothers and grandmothers of the disappeared with little recourse. It was during one such futile meeting that Azucena Villalfor, the mother of a disappeared detainee, determined to stage a protest at Plaza de Mayo – a gathering for relatives of the disappeared to recognise and know each other.

    Fourteen women gathered for the first meeting and the group later called themselves the Madres de Plaza de Mayo. It was from this group – the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo – that the Abuelas formed their own distinct group, as they were looking for both their disappeared children and grandchildren.

    The Plaza De Mayo in Buenos Aires, where the grandmothers have consistently protested since 1977.

    When Rosa joined the group of women, she realised that some stories of the disappeared children held some commonality – some women were also looking for their grandchildren. As support for their mission grew, some people came forward to report that their neighbours suddenly were raising babies, despite no earlier signs of pregnancy. The first inklings that the junta in Argentina had systematically abducted their grandchildren came when two Uruguayan children were located in Valparaiso after being abducted from Buenos Aires in 1976. The transnational operation was linked to Operation Condor – a US-backed plan that sought to eliminate all Communist and socialist influence in South America, and in which Argentina also participated.

    Alfredo Astiz, a naval officer who worked as ESMA, was tasked with infiltrating the group, posing as the brother of a disappeared detainee. The bodies of two mothers and a nun, supportive of their cause, were discovered decades later in a mass grave as a result of this operation.

    The Abuelas followed up on clues to piece together the broken narratives that could shed light on the disappearances and illegal abductions, since it was clear that no help from the state would be forthcoming. The military would not divulge information about the disappeared and it was through contacting other human rights organisations and a breakthrough in genetic testing that the Abuelas were able to prove the identity of the stolen children they eventually tracked down, and those of the children who came forward after the fall of the dictatorship in 1981.

    Cohen Gilliland gives a detailed account of the forensic anthropology that was employed to identify the remains of the disappeared buried in mass graves, as well as the setting up of Argentina’s National Genetic Data Bank in 1987. American geneticist Mary King devised a grandpaternity test that would allow the analysis of DNA samples from the grandparents and grandchildren to prove their family lineage. Cohen Gilliland writes: “In many cases, such as Rosa’s, the Abuelas were looking for grandchildren who had disappeared while still in their mothers’ wombs.” Following the return to democracy, the grandpaternity test became accepted as evidence in court cases relating to the abducted and illegally adopted children of the disappeared.

    Argentina’s truth commission report noted the abduction of the disappeared’s children, stating: “When a child is torn from their legitimate family to be placed in another family environment chosen according to an ideological notion of ‘what is best for their salvation,’ a vile usurpation of roles is being committed.” The report also lauded the Abuelas’ work and determination to establish not only the identities of the stolen children, but also the contribution of their efforts towards seeking justice for crimes against humanity committed by the dictatorship.

    “When a child is torn from their legitimate family to be placed in another family environment chosen according to an ideological notion of ‘what is best for their salvation,’ a vile usurpation of roles is being committed.”

    Despite the scientific success of genetic testing, several of the abducted grandchildren who came forth, as well as the Abuelas, did not anticipate the ramifications that disappearances and abductions would have on the affected families. Amid campaigns to discredit the Abuelas, and lawsuits contesting custody, the book illustrates how the dictatorships tore families apart and created new ones founded on torture, disappearances, abductions and lies. Reconciliation with biological family at times came at a cost, where justice was achieved at the expense of psychological trauma. Justice did not necessarily ease the endured past.

    This trauma is highlighted in the book through Rosa’s story and her search for her abducted grandson, Rodolfo, who was given the name Guillermo by the couple who raised him. While Guillermo – as he is referred to in the book – swiftly seeks out the truth about his identity, he is also faced with the repercussions of the decision. The psychological and emotional toll is evident as he navigates through two distinct realities: one in which the dysfunctional and abusive family he grew up with disintegrated, and the other in which he sought to reconcile himself with the history of his biological family, which should have belonged to him.

    One memory Guillermo narrates is his adoptive mother asking him, at the age of eight, what would happen if another woman claimed to be his mother. As memories of his past contend with the present, and the contradictions arise, particularly the discrepancies in his upbringing, Guillermo faces a major identity crisis. “You kidnapped the grandson of the vice president of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo,” he told Francisco Gomez, his adoptive father who worked for the military.

    Yet Gomez’s eventual arrest and its effects upon his adoptive mother brought a new round of implications for Guillermo, who found it difficult to distinguish emotionally between healthy and traumatic bonds. Even within his biological family, Guillermo and his sister became estranged over the rupture caused by the dictatorship’s abduction, despite the fact that Guillermo went on to become a lawyer and participate in bringing the dictatorship perpetrators to justice alongside the Abuelas.

    Milei shaking hands with Donald Trump in February 2025.

    Cohen Gilliand’s book is particularly important at a time when Argentina’s right-wing government is resolutely waging war against memory institutions in the country. Argentina’s quest for justice already faced hurdles during Mauricio Macri’s presidency, but current President Javier Milei has exceeded Macri’s measures since the start of his tenure, attacking not only sites of memory but also directly targeting the Abuelas. In a decree that was rejected by the Chamber of Deputies in August this year, Milei sought to remove the autonomy of the National Genetic Data Bank. This book treats the delicate subject of disappearances and abductions with dignity, yet with the clarity and sense of justice that must be employed against dictatorship oblivion.

    Feature Image: The mothers and grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo enter the former Navy Petty-Officers School of Mechanics detention center.

  • The Ghost in the Garrick

    Richard Midwinter arrived early at the Garrick and on entering the theatre was struck by a large eighteenth century painting in the foyer of a man with his arm around a stone bust of Shakespeare. Quite a striking image, he thought. Midwinter, himself an actor, stood for a moment staring at the playwright, in the embrace of the famous child of Thespis. Shakespeare had inspired, and fed, more than one generation of actors, and the fact there has been no better writer of the inner life of the mind gave the painting an extra gravitas. “His shadow casts no end. Or at least, no foreseeable end” he said to himself, echoing Jonson. He recalled what one of his teacher’s had told him at drama school ‘you don’t read Shakespeare, he reads you’ and smiled to remember it.

    He stared up at the silent painting for a while, somehow caught in its net. The actor in the painting was David Garrick, for whom the theatre is named. He knew that David Garrick had been famed for developing a new, more natural style of acting which relied on authenticity and emotion. He had revolutionised the theatre of his day. Midwinter took in the face in the painting, the large brown eyes and a faint flair of the nostrils around the noble nose, two maverick souls of the theatre joined in perpetuity, and he wondered what it meant to be a theatre man in those half-remembered days.

    The actor turned and walked down the staircase to the stalls where he entered the auditorium by the stage. There was nobody there. He had the strange feeling he was being watched. Maybe by someone hiding, or maybe by the theatre itself, who he always saw as a kind of ghost, and said so often. He was surrounded by invisible remnants again. He looked up and saw the theatres balconies adorned with golden cherubs with their cheeks puffed (possibly to give those on stage enough wind for their sails? He asked himself) and he wondered about the things they must have seen, the changes they had registered and the applause they certainly echoed. He sighed and then climbed back up the stairs to get a drink. The audience was beginning to arrive in earnest downstairs. Gin and tonic in hand, he decided to explore and went up the carpeted staircase to the grand circle, the highest tier of the theatre, where, finding himself alone, he looked down on the quiet, empty stage.

    The safety curtain was still lowered. He thought back to the time he had acted on that very stage many years before. It brought back an avalanche of memories. He knew the Garrick theatre well indeed. As he looked down at the stage, he remembered hearing the theatrical story that the term ‘break a leg’ isn’t referring to the breaking of a human leg. It refers to a mechanism in the old days by the stage which lifted and lowered the curtain called ‘the leg’. If the performance pleased the crowd they would shout for the curtain to be lifted up and down, cheering the actors back to the stage for more applause. Through incessant lifting and lowering to placate the ecstatic crowd ‘the leg’ could break through overuse. Hence, ‘break a leg.’

    Midwinter sat down in one of the comfortable red chairs, resting his empty cup on the floor and slowly closed his eyes. When he opened them moments later, he was full of alertness. And that was when he saw it. An open door and a dimly lit flight of stairs that seemed to be inviting him to approach. He walked over slowly and when he reached the doorway he looked around. Now was his chance to explore the old theatre. He reckoned he could claim ignorance if he was caught by one of the members of staff and say he was lost. As if some strange force had taken over, he found himself walking up the staircase and soon he arrived at the top, in a long Victorian corridor. The wall paper, the carpet, the light fittings, everything spoke of a bygone era. There were ornate silver gas lamps decorating the walls. He felt a dim glow of adrenaline as he looked up and down the corridor and made the decision to turn right where there was a door at the end and a flight of stairs. He walked down confidently and then suddenly, and without any warning, all the lights turned off.

    He stopped still where he was, motionless in the pitch black. He thought he had made a bad mistake coming up here, that maybe he was indeed being watched, and turned to go back down the way he came. In the darkness, he put his hand out to feel the wall as he couldn’t even see his quick moving fingers an inch in front of his face. He carried on walking with his left hand dragging the wall but when he looked back, the staircase he had come up wasn’t there anymore. He began to distrust his senses. He put it down to faulty depth perception and continued on his way. He looked ahead and at the end of the corridor a light came on behind a closed door and a rectangular beam of white light shone out at him. A moment later the lights flickered back on in the corridor and the door at the end swung open.

    Standing there in the doorway was a man dressed in a smart grey three-piece pinstripe suit with a lemon-yellow tie and a top hat in his hand. The man instantly reminded Midwinter of the face he had seen in the painting downstairs. He stared at his face intently and could have sworn it was the face of David Garrick himself. The moment filled with strangeness, so he put it to the back of his mind. The man in the doorway had a large but well-manicured moustache and was leaning on a smart black oak walking cane. His brooding dark eyes fixed on Midwinter’s. ‘Come in’ said the well-dressed man ushering with his hand for him to approach, ‘we’ve been expecting you.’ Midwinter looked around, confused as to how the man knew his name. He looked him up and down and immediately noted the man was wearing spats as he was encouraged into the office. The man sat down behind a fine desk and began to speak in an excitable, frantic way.

    “Wonderful play. Extraordinary. This man Wilde really has captured the imagination of the public. Maybe capture is the wrong word. Stoked perhaps, will do. The new one. Marvellous. Just marvellous.” Then he began to sing in a low, in-tune, baritone ‘come into the garden Maud, I am here at the gate alone, I am here at the gate alone!” And he became sentimental with emotion. Midwinter became bewildered by this man who was finely dressed, but, to him at least, evidently as mad as a carrier bag full of spiders.

    “Are you talking about Oscar Wilde?” Asked Midwinter, bemused.

    “Yes! Of course, who else could it be. Perhaps the other Irishman I suppose, Shaw, we have his new play ‘Mrs Warren’s Profession, showing here at the Garrick you know.”

    “Yes. I know. New play? I don’t….”

    “What do you think of it?”

    “What?”

    “The Wilde play”

    “Which one?”

    “Which one? The Importance of Being Earnest.”

    “I liked it, but then, I only saw the televised version.”

    “Televised? What the devil is that?” Midwinter knew something wasn’t right. The man was obviously playing games. He thought perhaps he had been hoodwinked into an elaborate practical joke. Midwinter played along to see where it would go and said,

    “The actors were good I remember. Anyway, sorry who are you? And why have you brought me here? I was just………….” Said Midwinter before the man behind the desk cut him off.

    “Dalliard Talinsky. Welcome to Infinity and the Abyss, that others call our theatre.” He stressed the word ‘our’ with theatrical zeal. He put out his hand and when Midwinter shook it, he felt that it was icy cold. “I am the manager here at the Garrick. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” He sat back as he produced a cigar from a silver box on the table. “I have brought you here Mr Midwinter to discuss a proposition. You are an actor. And, well, I need a theatre person you see.”

    “Who told you I was an actor? I don’t believe we have met before.” Midwinter became suspicious.

    “Well. I have my sources.” Midwinter looked around the room and back at Talinsky. His intrigue outweighed his confusion and the misapprehension he was feeling began to dissipate.

    “You invited me to talk. Should I have ran?” The question revealed a cunning in Talinsky’s smile but he stayed silent.

    “Why I am here?” Asked Midwinter.

    “You are here because I need you to bring the real world some news.”

    “The real world?”

    “Yes. The real world. The world out there. As I said, this is infinity and the abyss. You are no longer in the realm of the living.” A light flickered in Talinsky’s dark brown, softly devious eyes. The room took on a silence that discomforted Richard Midwinter. He looked Talinsky directly in the eye and held his stare. He wondered what kind of man he was.

    “What do you want me to tell them. The real world I mean.’ Midwinter sensed that Talinsky thought he was trying to catch him out.

    “I need you to right a wrong. I need you to expose an injustice. I need you to……shall we say, liberate redemption. Then, and only then, can I be set free. I have learned many things in my time here. Many things indeed. If you live forever, a century is the blink of an eye.”

    Midwinter responded with silence.

    “You are my way out of here.” He paused and leant back in the chair, naturally at ease. “How long have you been involved in the theatre?” Asked Talinsky.

    “All my adult life.” Midwinter’s response was prompt.

    “Ah. Then you will know P.T Yardly.”

    “I can’t say that I do.”

    “What! You don’t know Yardly?”

    “I believe not.”

    “Well, I’ll be damned. How strange. Yardly is a real theatre man. Yes wonderful. He has a genius for crowds. For the Zeitgeist. He knows what the people want and gives it to them. Hit show after hit after hit. It seemed he could do no wrong. He had been an actor himself, then a director, but it was in the production of plays, that was where his true talent lay. He was my inspiration, in many ways.” Talinsky picked up a large crystal lighter and lit his cigar, producing an oblong smoke ring with his initial lug.

    “I might as well come straight out and say it.” Said Talinsky. “I am unable to leave this theatre. God knows how I have tried. A century has passed me by. Maybe more.” Midwinter let out a short sharp burst of laughter, thinking he was joking.

    “It’s true.” His mood took on a sombre tone. “I have been confined to this theatre for over a hundred, long, dark years. It is my limbo. It is my purgatory. And now I wish to leave.” His face became veiled in a deep sadness.

    “This is nonsense.” Said Midwinter “I am the one that should be leaving. I’m going to go now. Goodbye.”

    “Go ahead, if you must.” The look in Talinsky’s scrupulous eyes changed, as if some dark brooding force, almost malevolent, had been unearthed inside his electrified expression. Midwinter stood up, perturbed by the mad intrusion, but when he turned around he saw that the door he had entered through had completely disappeared, replaced by gold and black wall paper. The two of them were in a doorless, windowless box. He span around and saw that Dalliard Talinsky was still sat behind his desk, but now with a red crow standing upon the upraised forefinger of his right hand.

    “What is this? What’s happening? Who are you?!” Demanded Midwinter.

    “I told you. I am Dalliard Talinsky. I am the theatre manager here. Imprisoned for forgotten years.” Again, the face of David Garrick, who he had just seen in the foyer below came into focus. The large brown eyes that could suddenly switch from doleful to sharp, to elation to melancholy, with a deft control.

    “What do you mean you have been here for a hundred years. Have you lost your mind?! Then let me ask you this. When were you born?”

    “I was born on the fourteenth day in the month of May, in the year of our Lord 1845, in the Oblast of Ukraine.”

    “What is he talking about?” He thought quietly. “You look less than 50!” He said.

    “Well guessed. I just turned 49. My word, is it that year already?” Thinking he was in the clutch of a con trick Midwinter’s mood changed, as if he was about to be robbed. He began to feel the sense of dread a child feels walking up the stairs having turned off the lights below, and the sensation something or someone, is creeping behind, following up the stairs, and through the house, and becoming too scared to turn around. Wondering if Dalliard Talinsky might be trying to do him harm, he became hesitant to move to see indeed if his eyes had deceived him. The pull was too great and he looked again, and again no door and no means of escape. He jumped up and threw himself against the wall frantically feeling for the door edge with his finger tips but found nothing. He was trapped.

    Reason took hold in the panic of the moment. Perhaps Talinsky was the only way out. Midwinter thought if he tried to harm Talinsky he could jeopardise his chances of escape. Been here for a hundred years?! The man was mad. Talinsky hadn’t moved from behind his desk, but now the crow was standing on his shoulder, and had changed colour, to an emerald green flecked with cloth of gold. His eyes, now full of malice and cunning, fixed on Midwinter with an expression of absolute seriousness. Midwinter saw his struggling was no use and stopped dead. Then he turned around, out of breath and shaking. Moments passed by and he calmly sat down with his arms rested on the arms of the chair. Looking again at his face, Midwinter thought Talinsky could be the devil himself, and a great sense of unease went through him.

    “What do you want with me?”

    “I told you. I need you to escape.”

    “You are making no sense at all.”

    “I repeat myself. I am in limbo. WE are in limbo. It is where you are now. The incredibility of my story doesn’t make it less true. What’s wrong? It’s as if you don’t believe me.” The flame of his lighter turned bright red, then green, then back to the yellow of a normal flame. Midwinter closed his eyes hoping this action would be able to tell him whether or not he was hallucinating. Whether he was away with the faeries, in a weird land of dreams. When he opened his eyes. Talinsky had disappeared. Midwinter was alone again. His neck twisted sharply and he saw the door that he had entered the room through had reappeared.

    “Thank God.’ Said Midwinter. He stood up and turned the door handle. He expected to see the corridor that led back down to the theatre, but when he opened it there was only an infinite blackness. He looked down and saw that there was nothing under his feet. The walls of the room had evaporated. In this impenetrable dark there was no floor or ceiling, no up or down or left or right, only darkness. Not even starlight, only black.

    Then suddenly in the near distance, a candle flame appeared. It glowed brightly, but all it illuminated was the tall wax candle that had breathed it into life. Midwinter stood in oblivion. Then, through the black void, in the dim candle light, a human face appeared. At first it was just a shape, a vague image. He rubbed his eyes. Quietly, he watched the scene, by now accepting that reality had abandoned him. Like the calm man at the gallows, he had excepted his fate. Perhaps he had gone mad and this was the asylum. It was Talinsky’s face appearing, and he began to speak.

    “Please” said Talinsky. “Let me introduce two of my old friends. My old friends of the theatre. They have been here even longer than me.”

    Two men appeared from nowhere, magicked out of the darkness. One of the men was fat and rosy cheeked, the other thin and gaunt. The three men stood for a moment in silence watching Richard Midwinter. Overwhelmed by peculiarity, by questions, Midwinter was rendered unable to speak.

    “Let me introduce you.” Said Talinsky. “This is the well-beloved Sir John.” The fat man took off his hat in recognition, out of which protruded a large peacock feather. “And this is………well. We just call him The Prince around here.” Two benches appeared, one from a tavern and one from a church. The fat man sat on his, and the prince lay down on his, with his hands behind his head. Midwinter looked at them both closely. All three men had the same face. The same face as the man he had seen in the old painting, in the foyer of the theatre. The three men were all David Garrick, and David Garrick was all three men. He was playing them all at the same time, as he would characters in a play.

    “Are you David Garrick? The man in the painting?” Asked Midwinter.

    “I have been may people in my time.” The thin, gaunt man replied. Then the fat man said “Let us to the singing.” He looked at Sir John and knew for certain that even though much fatter and fuller of face, belly and arse, they had the same eyes. The eyes of Garrick. The man in the painting.

    “Sweet prince” said the fat man suddenly bursting into life. He turned to Midwinter. “And what manner of man are you? You drink? I hope.”

    “Yes. I drink.” Said Midwinter. More candles came on suddenly, glowing the blackness of the void.

    “Nonsense young man, you’re still breathing, aren’t you? You look as fit as a fiddle to me, and my eyesight is better than most men’s. Yes! We have heard the silence at noon, master Midwinter.” The thin gaunt man said nothing as Midwinter turned his gaze on the prince but it seemed he was thinking deeply about something that had nothing to do with any of them. A conversation with himself, obscured, hidden in the dark recesses of his mind. Talinsky looked Midwinter in the eye and paused.

    “Well, what do you see?” Asked Talinsky.

    “Three men in the darkness.” He replied.

    “I see infinity.” Said Sir John, smiling.

    “And I see the abyss.” Said the Prince.

    Talinsky looked at Midwinter with an expression of great hope that emanated from his whole face through the prism of his eyes.

    “Help us.” Said Garrick in the unison of three men. The characters all spoke as one voice.

    “What can I do? For Christs sake!” Shouted Midwinter.

    “You have done enough. Now I must go.” Said Talinsky. ‘To return to the world. Thank-you, Mr Midwinter. You have set me free. But now you must stay. You must replace me, until you find another. Goodbye Midwinter. And thank you for your sacrifice. You shall be remembered in heaven!”

    “I’ve been tricked! You have tricked me!” Shouted Richard Midwinter overwrought with emotion. And with that Dalliard Talinsky smiled back at him and disappeared from sight, melting out of existence, out of the void.

    “Infinity or the Abyss. Infinity or the Abyss!” Went the two characters, singing together in a loud whisper.

    “I am infinity.” Sang the fat man.

    “And I am the abyss.” Whispered the Prince.

    The Fat Man looked at Midwinter straight in the eye and said,

    “Just as there is a heaven and hell on earth, so there is in all the creations of man, including the hereafter. We are the masters of punishment and reward. We are conscious of our own souls. If there were no humans in the universe there would be no God of humans. Thus, and therefore, you have a choice. Infinity?’

    “Or the Abyss?” Said The Prince.

    “You live with us now.” They said together.

    “No. No!” Shouted Midwinter in fear.

    The fat man began to laugh and dance in the blackness of the void. The prince raised his bony finger and pointed it at Midwinter. “I am the abyss!” Said the sad faced prince. “And I am infinity!” Said the laughing fat man. “And you are an actor! We together make up your soul, so don’t be afraid.” The jolly fat man pulled a fiddle out from nowhere like it was a magic trick. They sang in perfect harmony. “We are your soul” and then they turned and walked away into the distance of the black void singing and dancing as they went, even the sad prince. Midwinter found it impossible to move as if an invisible force was holding him down. He held out his arm with an open hand shouting to the actors who didn’t look back from there departing performance.

    ‘No…No…No!” Said Midwinter until the blackness turned to the longest night and he cried himself into a deep sleep.

    Midwinter woke up and found himself still in the infinite black void. He looked around and saw that he was alone. Totally alone in black, endless nothingness. This is what hell is like he thought, and he remembered something his devoutly Christian mother had told him when he was a child about hell not being fire and brimstone, but simply ‘the absence of God.’ In this place he could feel himself walking, and running even, but there was nowhere to go. Sitting and standing felt the same. Minutes turned to hours, hours to days, days to months and months to years. A thousand years could be lived in a minute and a minute in a thousand years. He thought, what is there new to be imagined, now all I have is imagination? His imagination would fly, pen-less. He felt a sudden, unexpected joy. And then, miraculously, he heard a woman’s voice penetrating the void. It came to his ears like music.

    “He’s waking up!” She said.

    The blackness of the infinite nothingness was obliterated by light, it’s brightness fierce enough to make him squint hard. Richard Midwinter blinked rapidly, the watering of his eyes coming at him like overflowing cups. He was alive and back in the world. He was home. He looked around as his blurry vision cleared and soon realised he was in a hospital ward, lying in bed. He looked around and saw all the other patients lying in their beds, waiting patiently for something to happen. He saw the voice was coming from a nurse standing over his bed.

    “What happened?” He asked through blurry eyes.

    “You have been in a coma. You fell into a coma sitting in the theatre.” Said the nurse.

    “How long have I been here?”

    “All in good time. Doctor Garrick will explain everything, don’t worry, he’s here now.’ Said the nurse.

    “Who?” Said Richard Midwinter bewildered. He looked up with his eyes becoming wilder as he acknowledged Doctor Garrick standing over him, those deep brown eyes full of thinking, full of cunning, smiling down from the bedside.


    Feature Image: The Garrick Theatre by Katie Chan

  • Poem: September is Here

    September is Here

    and I want to feel the tingle
    of autumn over the horizon.
    The palette of skies, laying themselves
    nightly before my eyes like Turkish
    carpets in the souks of Istanbul.
    I want to anticipate the nuanced change
    of the leaves, delicate as if the maestro
    himself draws them into the rising
    crescendo of the orchestra – slowly,
    softly, instrument by instrument,
    tree by tree, colour by colour
    until the cymbals clash and the double
    basses vibrate their music through
    the woods and lanes.

    I want to watch the swallows gather
    on the telephone wires, line upon
    line, their eyes on horizons I cannot
    even imagine; waiting for the wind
    to call them, the stars to set their orbit
    across the world.
    I want to see the berries fall
    ripe and rotten into the hollows of
    the hedge, so unseen creatures
    can have their bacchanal,
    their last fling of the  season, then
    reel home through the undergrowth
    replete and tipsy, to sleep the winter away.

    I want to walk to the shore and hear
    the waves rising up in anger,
    beating back the beaches,
    sucking up the stones and hurling
    them at the cliffs in fits of
    equinoctial rage.

    Most of all, I just want to feel
    vibrancy, not deal with autumn playing
    fast and loose – doling out fitful sun,
    welters of drab rain; gales that blow
    and pause and then roar in again, battering
    my garden of deceased flowers and sad
    stalks bent double with despair,
    rotting where they fall. And all
    in light that barely lifts its head,
    light that is just a brief apology
    for being short and low and hesitant;
    no longer flaring with summer’s lusty
    fervour – breaking in and waking me
    at 4am just to whisper sweet nothings
    through the chink in the curtains.

    I want something other than
    the torpor of half-arsed endings.
    What happened to mellow fruitfulness?
    Give me liquid golden light that makes me
    look up, look out; something to cradle
    in my mind through winter. Give me
    that wild transition I know this season
    keeps secreted up its sleeves, to
    compensate for all the untold things
    summer always snatches as she leaves,
    like a jilted lover.
    So autumn, please, no fickle
    promises of crisp, cold days that don’t
    materialise. Step up; pull your finger out –
    go French – Italian – go Portuguese;
    bring on the colours and the lights,
    run your hit show again. You can do it.
    Don’t tease, don’t cheat by sneaking limply
    past, skulking like a thief between the hot
    dog days and winter’s sharp retreat.

  • Poem: Maldon days

    Maldon days

    hēt þā hyssa hwæne    hors forlǣtan,
    feorr āfȳsan,    and forð gangan,
    hicgan tō handum,    and tō hige gōdum.
    The Battle of Maldon (991 AD)

    Galvanized into action,   my companion horses neighed
    as they galloped to the woods,   riderless and rudderless.
    I turned back to my liege lord,   reluctant to retreat,
    but he waved me away from him,   although I was his steadfast steed
    who had taken him into battle boldly before   on many occasions.

    In the woods, we regrouped.   Ealdorman Byrhtnoth’s proud hawk
    circled and swooped overhead,   dismissed as we had been,
    uneasy as we were.   We faced out towards the riverbank,
    watching the fighting begin,   watching the ruthless invaders wreak havoc.
    We waited for the command to return   but it never came.

    I went down to the battlefield first,   saw my beloved ealdorman
    bristling with spears,   slaughtered alongside his faithful warriors.
    Leaving our heroes, our lords lying lifeless,   we trotted back to our stables,
    knowing that our return would herald the defeat,   set off the lamentations
    of the families left behind,   filling us all with sorrow for our great loss.

    Feature Image: Battle of Maldon plains.

  • Podcast: “He Bought Plato” a conversation with John Dillon

    John Dillon, Regius Professor of Greek (Emeritus) at Trinity College Dublin, is an Irish classicist and philosopher considered a world authority in ancient philosophy and Platonism. Born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1939, he returned to Ireland as a child and studied Classics at Oxford before earning a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley. He taught at Berkeley from 1969 until his appointment at Trinity in 1980, where he remained until his retirement in 2006. Dillon is founder and Director Emeritus of the Dublin Plato Centre and a member of several prestigious academies, including the Royal Irish Academy and the Academy of Athens. A professor Emeritus of the British Academy. He has published over thirty books and numerous articles, focusing on the transmission of Platonic philosophy.

    Episode Credits:

    Host: Luke Sheehan

    Music: Loafing Heroes – ​​https://theloafingheroes.bandcamp.com

    Produced by Massimiliano Galli – https://www.massimilianogalli.com

  • The Dish Washer

    He put on the yellow marigolds with some difficulty, while at the same time remembering something a wise Roman stoic had once written that went ‘dig inside yourself. Inside there is a well of goodness ready to gush at any moment, if you keep digging,’ and wondered if he had learned the line while studying for his PHD. Perhaps it was earlier when he sat long evenings in the library at Senate House attempting to become a master of arts. He couldn’t quite remember. His past was becoming a single entity, where once it had been fractured. He had woken up early that extremely cold winter morning to become a dish washer, or kitchen porter as it was advertised, and he wondered as he battled through the arctic weather, what had become of his long and arduous education. All those hours worrying about exams, all those times revising, researching, reading and editing and now at the age of forty-three he had seventy-three pounds to his name. He poured the washing up liquid into the large metallic sink under the instruction of the young Romanian woman and turned on the hot tap. “The water must be hot” she informed him. He looked into the mountainous bubbles as they slowly rose in the basin and in them, saw a galaxy emerge. Bliss came over him when he thought he could kill boredom with his imagination alone, and the silence of the universe out-manoeuvred by a simple playfulness of mind.

    As he began to scrub the dirty dishes, he wondered what his thirty years of education had all been for. It couldn’t have been for the money. Like the pieces of paper tucked away in a draw in the old homestead, his past successes were quietly hidden now, to mention them a suggestion of either boastfulness or failure. The first pan he washed had burnt black crusts of pastry stuck along the sides and he began to scrub it with a wire brush. It was stubborn and he applied more washing up liquid, and gave some extra elbow grease to remove it, but the dark stain wouldn’t budge. Minutes rolled by to the sound of scrubbing. The steam from the hot water was like sweat on his face. The harder he worked the more intense his feelings of failure became. The failure of his life’s work up until that moment. Was he ‘better’ than this? Was he better than washing dishes for a living? Scrubbing dishes to make ends meet. He must be ‘better’ than this he thought, as he finally removed the last piece of caked in pastry, but he couldn’t exactly work out why.

    Minh, the old Vietnamese lady that had worked in the kitchen for many years, smiled at him as she passed to go about the morning chore of cutting the bread for that afternoon’s school lunch. Her smile brightened his spirits. Three more dirty trays arrived and he submerged them in the suds. As if stuck on a treadmill like a hamster in a wheel his thoughts returned to his predicament. Only a job and a place, that would certainly change in time, as all the times and places of his life had changed up until then. He remembered another thing the Roman stoic had said, about change being a constant of all life, and was contented.

    Maybe now, at his age, he should be making more money than he was. He never really cared about money if the truth be known. If he had enough, he had enough, and enough was enough. It was one of the reasonings in his life to which he stayed true. The main thing that he got out of his philosophical studies was the idea of becoming good. Then, being good, was the natural state. We shouldn’t be kind to others for our own sake but rather because being kind brings the universe, the whole, into alignment. He looked around at the clock on the wall and it was exactly noon. Then he did an hour’s worth of thinking and when he looked back up, it said four minutes past. ‘Most work is trading your life, or time, for money. Maybe the whole of nature is just hope, manifest’ he thought as he gazed down at the collapsing suds. His imagination had awakened in the uneventfulness of the morning. He felt the warlike silence.

    He emptied the sink and then spent a while picking the soggy pasta and vegetables from the plug hole and decanted them into a bin bag. Then back to the sink to refill it with soapy hot water. He looked up and out of the window, and saw a crisp blue winter sky. On the thin branches of a leafless tree, glistening crystal droplets of rain shone below the grey sky of the recent Atlantic storm and his work came to a discreet standstill. Two robin red breasts danced on a twig. Behind the January tree was a road and a queue of people, some with umbrella’s waiting in the flour mist, waiting for the bus that would take them away from this same old place. None of them had noticed the rain-dropped leaves in the downpour, each one a kind of planet, a world within worlds, making up the whole.

    There was an old cockney woman that worked in the kitchen that liked nothing more than power, driven on every morning, through every day, by the smallness of her sad world, butchering the language with her soulless rants and dull observations. She walked into the kitchen and ruined the moment for him by talking for twenty-two seconds about the steam that was coming from the oven. The words that came from her mouth had no value or interest to the dishwasher but it was important for her to hear her own voice to remind others that she was in charge. In charge of this small kitchen, and in charge of her small world. He didn’t attempt to say anything to her, but he thought it wouldn’t be a bad thing if she was kinder. More dirty plates were dropped with a clang into the soapy water which meant more work, which meant more money for him, even though he was being paid minimum wage, his presence alone was earning. ‘This is the way society says self-worth is achieved of course. That in some way or other life must me earned, it’s not good enough just being born. Born poor I mean.’ He thought.

    Then he thought back on his education and experienced a sublime uplift when he reasoned that learning in and of itself can never be a waste of time, but then his gladness abated as he considered the other side of the coin. What if, like those that had been brought up in religious cults, an entire life of thoughts could be wasted. If the truth lay south and you walked north for 84 years where would that leave you on your death bed? Lost, presumably, but perhaps happy and content. Perhaps not. He considered different belief systems in the world. The only wisdom he could glean was to avoid dogmatism at all costs, and to cast doubt on certainty. And then he thought that must be easier said than done when he thought about the importance of conviction, and the humiliations it is heir to. To work, to seek meaning for a lifetime, in a lifetime, and then have it robbed at the finish line may be too much to bear. Maybe Epicurus was right, in the end. Also, maybe hedonism has a value. To dance, to sing and play was good, and better than the opposite. He saw a side-burned face in the suds, ‘lose your sense of humour and you’re fucked’ came the Burslem voice from the sink water. His memory played games again. And then from nowhere the voice of Jeffrey Bernard on Desert Island Discs. Dying, and with the cigarette smoke almost travelling with the radio waves saying to the interviewer ‘to me Mozart is divinity’ and then pressed by her on the regrets he had now he faced death he replied matter-of-factly ‘I wish I had been a better person. It’s as simple as that.’ The dishwasher thought there was a beauty in this acknowledgment, in the recognition of the fact.

    The dishwasher began to dream of the mountains of Scotland where he had once lived, and where he had felt, once upon a time, a thousand years pass in the afternoon rays. Memory, and dreams of a future past, vied together as if they were one entity. Why do we have to earn what we never chose? Born and demanded to work. He thought. It was a melancholy meditation. He thought ‘If life is a competition, then maybe we are just cunts, to use the proper Saxon vernacular’. For the rich to stay rich the poor must be poor, this was the application of pure logic to him, a revelation in its simplicity. It’s matter-of-factness. What if everybody was rich? What if there was no-one to wash the dishes? What then? The old cockney lady continued talking because it was something to do, but at the end of her soul destroying jabbering’s she said something that interested him very much, when she described how when she was growing up in the east end of London it was ordained in her community not to get above yourself and say or act as though you are better than anyone else, ‘because you are not.’ He witnessed a different, more humane side to her. He mulled over her wisdom, intrigued by her comment, until only a few minutes later when she described her joy as she waved her flag on the Mall up at the balcony where Prince Andrew and ‘their highnesses’ stood and waved back. His democratic socialism and her monarchism were spiritually incompatible. He began to load up the plastic tray with cups and turned on the machine once more. To the dishwasher, her way of thinking was more toilsome even than the constant repetition of washing dishes. As the machine came on, the noise allowed him to think for a moment. It didn’t matter how many material things he had. How much money. What mattered was what was felt, what was thought, what could be imagined, what could be created, out of thin air. He looked up and saw that Minh was smiling to herself as she thought a happy thought, not knowing anybody was watching.

    The following morning, he arrived to work early and felt content working for a while alone, preparing for the day. That was a good time of the morning, full of potential. The dishwasher tingled with dreaming. Or was he a philosopher? With his mind and hands at work simultaneously he could be both. The plump old Cockney woman barged into the kitchen fifteen minutes late for work just as he was thinking about definitions of love, and to placate her anger at being late, began to talk at him in a loud condescending voice about the floor not being mopped. He said he would do it calmly with his body language saying ‘if you would politely leave me be.’ He remembered the word ‘Ataraxia’ which can mean ‘freedom from disturbance’. She continued talking loudly and when she said ‘we was’ for the third time he drifted off into an internal debate and wondered how many people in England who disliked foreigners and foreign languages as she did, and said so, understood that their handle on the English language was ungood. He felt certain if he brought the subject to light he would be hated for it. He would be damned as a language snob or worse, a snob. He said nothing. He thought the language of accents reflect souls in their own ways. The accent reflects belonging. ‘People who change their accents no longer wish to belong. The new tribe outweighs the old.’ He thought. He wondered about the imagination and whether it is built from the world we see, the world we experience, or is it born from something separate, like the unconscious mind being born from ancestral dreams. He had looked into Buddhism and concluded he didn’t want to free his mind of thought. Also, he didn’t want to reach Nirvana because he felt from there, there was nowhere else to go. The trick of life was to keep on learning, imagining, until all faculties are lost. A huge pile of plates came in after lunchtime and this was the signal to keep his head down working, until he clocked off at 4.30pm. He had a take away that night as he had become sick of the sight of unclean plates, and the endless necessity of washing them.

    He went home to his bedsit with his fish and chips in a bag and sat down in front of the TV with a six pack of beers and a packet of cigarettes. ‘No point working if you can’t enjoy it’ was the persistent thought he had on leaving his places of work. For relaxation he played computer scrabble as a form of meditation but he found writing, the thing he dreamed of doing, difficult, and rewarding only very occasionally. He would sometimes strum away at the acoustic guitar in the corner of the room which he had had since university. It brought back good memories, just being there. All the dreams he had when he was a young man were now living memory, the whistle blown on stardom, but then he concluded his youth was hard enough without the added complication of fame. He had been friends with a man at university that had been desperate for musical stardom, and years later he had heard through the grapevine that the man had taken his own life by throwing himself into the Thames. He wondered whether the suicide and the reality of unfilled dreams were interconnected and concluded that they probably were. The sad thought was silenced by the cracking open of a can of cold lager. Television, which was once the drug of the nation, had been replaced by the internet, almost overnight, or at least while no-one was looking, but he was hanging on by his remote. He went to bed half tipsy, taking care what he wished for.

    Early the next morning he was on his way to work when he saw the crowd at the bus stop gathering around someone on the floor, there was an obvious commotion. He went over to see if he could be of any help and when he leaned over the shoulders to see what was going on he saw Minh, the old Vietnamese lady he worked with, lying on the floor clutching her heart. The sight of her suffering made him panic and worry deeply. He told everyone he was her colleague and then asked if someone had called an ambulance to which they replied they had and it would be there any minute now. He leant down as she opened her eyes and she registered his presence with a smile. He smiled back. Then she closed her eyes and the hand on her heart relaxed as if she was falling asleep. He called out to her but she made no reply. In this moment the paramedics arrived with the whirring of sirens and took over. Very shortly afterwards she was on a stretcher being carried into the ambulance. He explained he was her colleague and asked if he could accompany them to hospital. They said yes. As they left, he turned around and the assembled crowd reminded him of a herd of wildebeest that look on as one of their own is devoured by a lion. He wondered what the Roman stoic would have thought and concluded it would probably be, ‘this is the way of thing’s’ or words to that effect.

    At the hospital he was told the sad news that Minh, the kind Vietnamese lady that he worked with had died. He travelled back to the school kitchen where they worked by foot. Everything on the walk took on a new state of life. The glittering frost now had the soul of symphonies, the barren trees proof of nature’s fight, the foggy veil of the sun emanating a magical winter light away above the horizon. He walked through the kitchen door with the sorrow in his face reflecting the sad news he had to tell and was greeted by the plump old cockney lady who in a loud voice said to him before he had a chance to speak ‘what time do you call this you caaant!’ He looked her in the eye. ‘Minh is dead, and so are you, to me.’ He tossed his apron back on the pile. She looked shocked but instantly refused to apologise. The dishwasher looked at her and said ‘I was wondering if I was better than this job. No, I don’t think so. But I am better than being bullied by you. Dig?”

    “Go on then. Do one, get aaaat!” She said loudly and waved him towards the door. He turned to leave and saw the large pile of washing she would have to do if the agency didn’t have anyone. They probably did though. There are always people who have to work for poor wages. That provides the surplus, but I suppose that’s a story for another time. He hadn’t lasted long in the job as dishwasher. ‘I can’t be having that’, he thought as he closed the door behind him and walked out into the freezing day. He carried on down the icy sludge path to freedom and recalled the Roman stoic, ‘Pain is neither unendurable or unending, as long as you remember its limits and do not exaggerate it in your imagination’. Jobless for the foreseeable, again, he was hit by the thought that his life could be ten or a hundred times more fulfilled, joyful and meaningful as someone who earned ten or a hundred, or a million times more than himself, if he had the right frame of mind.  It was the destiny of the dishwasher to live in his imagination, and his imagination didn’t pay by the hour.

    Feature Image: Gillian Gamboa

  • Musician of the Month: Flavia Watson

    Since before I can remember, music has been my world, and a path that I had to follow. I feel so grateful to be able to channel my feelings, emotions, heart, and experiences into music that can touch others. To be a bridge in the dark between strangers that illuminates our shared human experiences. 

    My parents have always supported my art unconditionally. I set my arrow on it, and they were fully on board, encouraging me at every step, no matter what struggles may come with this career and life path. From a young age I’d make fake tickets to put on a show in the sitting room, that they’d of course have no choice but to attend. I’m so grateful to them, and their championing of me to follow my own choices and dreams. Having that kind of support made me feel like the sky was the limit, that anything I could imagine I could make possible in my life. My sister has always been such an inspiration to me as well, she’s a creative Goddess and has always been a big part of my artistry since I was a kid.

    I grew up around the world. I was born in the U.S. and raised predominantly in Wicklow, Ireland, as well as partly in Italy where my mother’s side of the family is from. I have been living nomadically for five-and-a-half years, and it’s been so special weaving experiences, sounds and connections from around the world into my music.

    I’m currently working on my debut album, taking listeners through a very personal heroine’s journey that I’ve been on the last couple years. Losing myself, which was mirrored in the form of a challenging relationship, only to go deep within to find the parts of myself that needed love and tending to, and coming out the other side stronger than ever. This song, Learning to Love Me,  and my album, are a celebration of self. All the parts of ourselves we may have not accepted, and realizing they’re all part of what makes us so special and unique. Most often it’s through our biggest challenges that we find our greatest strengths. Hopefully through this journey listeners can reflect on their own story, and this can be a little light on the path, with a few nuggets of wisdom that I’ve learned a long the way.

    After the fall comes the rise. With every contraction comes a great expansion. Learning To Love Me is about coming Home to myself. After a relationship where I lost myself, and abandoned parts of me, this song is about that beautiful period post relationship where you start to devote more time to yourself and rediscover your magic, your wonder, and your strength. Where you welcome the fallen parts of yourself in from the cold, tending to them, holding them close to your Heart. It’s a song about power and self love, howling under the moonlight, re-wilding, and dancing like sparks in the night sky.

    I’m about to head on my first European tour supporting U.S. artist, Haiden Henderson. I get to go through so many of my favorite cities. I’m really looking forward to connecting with fans from different countries and cultures. I love the energy in the room when you’re performing live, nothing compares. It’s electric.

    I feel constantly inspired by time with community, experiences out in the world, adventures and stillness in nature, human relating, I take inspiration from everything! To me LIVING is one of the most important things an artist can do for their art. Feeling the depths of your human experience, the furthest reaches of pain and pleasure, of joy and play and heartbreak. It’s the job of the artist to feel everything and somehow make some sense of the chaos through music, painting, movement, or whatever art form you weave with. I think creativity is a birth right and that we all have this capacity to alchemize our pain and pleasure into art to help us process this complicated and beautiful thing called Life.

    I’m hoping to start collaborating with more Irish artists and creatives. I’ve been living abroad for a long time but I’m bringing it back home. So if you’re a music artist, producer, visual artist, director, photographer etc. feel free to reach out! I’d love to make more art in my beautiful homeland.

    And if you’ve read this far, thank you for joining me! Feel free to follow me on Instagram @flaviaspeaks.