Contents:

Cat Pictures

Put to the Sword

Groups

Barra

Shops

Selling my books

Da’s Poem

CAT PICTURES

Rúnda thinking about all the books that are under her. As soon as one of the boxes is open and half-empty she’ll be sleeping in it. That’s what you do when you’re a director.

Autumn leaves upon my books in Westmoreland Street.
At this moment, Hoot is not in my sack.

Now he is.

Rúnda up a tree. In theory she is Head Of Accounts but she prefers to be up trees.

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PUT TO THE SWORD

Sometimes when I am feeling tired and alone I find myself starting to question and doubt some of the things in which I believe.
At one such time a couple of months ago, a woman who I’d never seen before said to me very challengingly on the DART –
“Pat Ingoldsby! You think the opposite to everything that we think!” All of a sudden I felt much more tired and more alone.
People are always giving out hell to me for keeping my poems safe from inclusion in school textbooks. I have long since given up explaining my reasons. I save my energy for making new poems and getting the funds together to publish my books. From time to time when people really go to town on me and tell me how wrong I am to protect my poems from the terrible things that would be done to them in the name of education, I think to myself – “Jesus – they might be right.”
It is at such moments that people like the old man who passes me and my books on the street and stops and smiles and talks about the most unexpected things…it is at such moments that he stops and says to me – “I saw this big book full of lovely poems in a charity shop…it’s only one Euro…”
“ Will you get it for me the next time you’re passing the shop…I’ll give you the Euro now.”
“ It’s a bit battered” he said. “But the poems are grand. You can give me the money when I get the book.”
“ God no…I’ll give it to you now.” And that’s what we did.
He was back a couple of days later with a heavy book wrapped inside a white plastic bag. When I saw what it was my heart sank. An up-to-date poetry collection specifically designed for Higher Level Leaving Certificate English Students. I felt like throwing it in the bin. But then I thought, whenever I am not sure about my decision regarding my own poems and examinations, one look through a book like this usually does the trick. A week passed before I felt able to open it. And then, holy fuck, I saw the sort of stuff I was afraid of…… What is the effect of the question mark with which the poems ends? Can you suggest why this poem ends with a full stop?……Which details in the poem give an uneasy feeling? …..Do you think this poem grim? Honest? Realistic? All three? Examine the poet’s use of rhythm and repetition in this poem? The sooty streaks on the pansies are not caused by soot. Does this matter? At this stage I had to stop. Random questions. Random poems. Poor poems. Created in lofty moments. Brought down to this. All of a sudden I never felt so right. The glory and the madness and the fire. The orgasm of pen flowing over paper. Don’t worry poems. My lovely poems. You’re safe as long as I’m around.

A couple of days later out in a wintry Howth, wandering around my summer haunts, down the pier, into the Pier House, up and down Abbey Street, looking at the heavy grey sea, I sat upon a wall and wrote the following –

HIGHER ENGLISH PAPER FOR LEAVING CERTIFICATE STUDENTS
2000and something

“ Do that again and I’ll break your bleedin’ face for you!”
“ You and what army you puffed up little sparrow fart!”
The two men faced on another across a table-tennis table
and tabled a motion expressing dissatisfaction
with the wobbling of unstable table-tennis tables.
They steadied it by inserting under one of the legs
a paperback copy of King Arthur And His Knights
Of The Round Roast And A Pound Of Dripping.

Question One: There is no giraffe mentioned in this poem. If there was, for what do you think it would be a metaphor?

Question Two: How do you think it possible for one of the protagonists to break the other’s bleedin’ face when it is clearly
not bleeding yet. Does it matter?

Question Three: How do you think that he thought he’d be able to do it in the first place? Do you think anybody gives a bollix?

Question Four: Comment on the poet’s use of less than three apostrophes. (optional).

Question Five: Write two hundred words on the way that the poet uses a table to symbolise that way that the brown paper bag
disintegrates when you lash loads of vinegar into it and chips land on your shoe.

Question Six: What would you rather be doing now?

Question Seven: Is her mother out?

Question Eight: Can we come and watch?

Right so.

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About groups and being a part of them. This is as much as I can remember.

Doctors of Dentures: We practiced lots of times in Steve Averill's parent's garage and had keyboards and really husky backing vocals and it never sounded the same twice and we all wore white coats and dentist's masks and only ever made one appearance - on the television show SBB ina Shui - where we performed my poem - they may only be a set of false teeth to you but inside each and every tooth is an intense longing to be taken seriously and accorded the dignity that is its due.
Steve composed the backing, played keyboards and brought a bit of credibility to the proceedings.
We divided the cheque up evenly afterwards.
It wasn't very much
Then we disbanded.

Fishheads: We practiced lots of times in Steve Averill's parent's garage and had keyboards and really husky backing vocals and it never sounded the same twice and we all wore fishes heads which were actually big paper bags with peep holes cut out of them for the eyes and we only ever made one appearance - on the television show SBB ina Shui - where we performed my poem about overcrowding in sardine tins which was titled- This poem may appear whimsical in content, but verily in sooth, the implications could well rock the very foundations of civilization or whatever or possibly both.
Steve composed the backing, played keyboards and brought the sort of leadership to the proceedings which saw us all finishing together.
We divided the cheque up evenly afterwards.
It wasn't very much
Then we disbanded.

I seem to remember yet another incarnation, involving most of the above elements where I was standing in a bath trimming the beard on a skull while reciting the poem. I am convinced that it happened. Steve cannot remember anything about it. Perhaps it was an incredibly convincing bad dream or wishful thinking or something but I don't think so.

The Small Philharonic: This was poetry and jazz. We practiced lots of times in Fergus's house where his wife Kitty gave us loads of tea an delicious freshly baked scones smothered with butter. Bernard played the big upright bass and himself and Fergus chose appropriate existing melodies to match the poems.
Fergus played the most elegant piano that I have ever heard. We only ever did the one gig - in the Edmund Burke Theatre at Trinity College. It is a huge auditorium with God knows how many seats. Eight people turned up on the night in spite of a magnificent poster which was designed for us by Steve Averill and we plastered the town with it.
Because of an accident on a trawler in Scotland the previous week, I was forced to appear on crutches which didn't seem strange to me in the slightest after some of the things I'd been doing in other bands.
We didn't divide anything up evenly afterwards because there was nothing to divide. Of the eight people who sat in the Ed Burke that night, two were family members and one was a girlfriend.
We were great though.
Then we disbanded.
I still have a few Small Philaharonic posters somewhere in my spare room. I must dig them out soon because they're massive.

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Barra

Should anyone from Barra access this website there is a special welcome here for you and there always will be. I love to go wandering around your island and let the wind buffet me this way and that. I never know who I am going to meet but always it is good. My favourite place in the world apart from where I am right now is to be walking the road between the IOB and Ocean View in Borv with the Atlantic making a huge roar down below me to my left. Please God I'll see you all again next year. I hope so.

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Shops that we are proud to supply:

Dublin:

Easons in O'Connell Street.
Eason/Fred Hanna in Nassau Street
Greene's Bookshop in Clare Street
The Winding Stair down beside the Halfpenny Bridge

The rest of the world:

Kenny's Bookshop in Galway -

Click here and then Search by author (Ingoldsby) or title, then take your pick!

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Selling my books down in North Earl Street. This was my happiest pitch ever. I started out here with one book and one book only to sell - HOW WAS IT FOR YOU DOCTOR? and it just sort of snowballed in a glorious way from there. The atmosphere here was unique and vibrantly Dublin, the women with their prams, mandarin oranges, Toblerone bars, lighters five for a pound, Paddy with his banjo, Roddy and his tin whistle, you would look long and hard to find a finer group of people and now they're all gone. We were all moved on and now everyone's scattered all over the place. It is not the Dublin that I knew and I feel an awful sadness in me to see it going. I've been selling in God knows how many places since. At present I'm out on the edge of the pavement in Westmoreland Street. If I look down to my right THIS is what I see:

Looking down the other way towards Trinity College, THIS is my view:

Leaning back on my stool and gazing straight up I always get a lovely peaceful feeling when I wander my eyes up and down THIS building:

Maybe someday I'll be writing a poem in my jotter and I'll look up and see YOU standing there. Sure you never know.

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I came upon an old hard-covered notebook of my father's and inside, all of the pages were blank with the exception of one. On it he had written this piece about Dublin which he planned to use as part of a voice-over for a home move in which he had lovingly traced the progress of the Liffey all the way from the Wicklow Mountains to the sea. Da's heart was in Dublin and Dublin was in his heart. I treasure this notebook and I specially treasure the page with his handwriting on it. When I publish my next collection of poems, this one will have pride of place in it. I'm profoundly broke at the moment so God knows when that will be, so in the meantime thanks to James and the outlet he has provided to me via this website I can now float it out into the world with pride. So here it is... Da's poem about Dublin.

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