I wrote this poem in 2018 during a visit to Ireland to celebrate becoming an Irish citizen. The Dublin locations are linked to my Irish grandmother and my English grandfather. My grandmother's whole family had to flee Ireland in 1921-22 because they were caught up in the conflicting loyalties and violence of that time (my grandmother had two brothers in the IRA, and she married a British army officer).
The Old Head of Kinsale is the nearest point of land to the place where the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1915. I visited Kinsale, and wrote this poem, without knowing that my great-grandmother, Mary Desmond, was born there.
