When the Troubles broke out, he would come to refer to his native city as “Hellfast”
Padraic Fiacc: he was born 100 years ago in April 1924 on Elizabeth Street in the Lower Falls area of BelfastPadraic Fiacc was known as the “Poet of the Troubles” due to his humane writing about that dark period in history. His birth name was Patrick Joseph O’Connor and he hailed from Belfast.
He attended a high school where Latin and the humanities were taught. He relished the opportunities that the school gave him for intellectual stimulation and the chance to meet children from different backgrounds.Prince of the church – Brian Maye on Cardinal Michael Logue Years later, looking back on his time in New York, he seemed conflicted about it. On one hand, he enjoyed the cultural melting pot that it was and the opportunities it afforded him. He was particularly grateful about his school days and felt that his formative years were enriched by having African, Asian, Middle Eastern and European classmates.
In 1957, he won the AE Memorial Award for Poetry for his collection Woe to the Boy. His nom de plume “Padraic Fiacc” was a nod to his mentor Padraic Colum, who he met in New York. Fiacc was chosen to represent the Irish word “fiach” . In a poem entitled, Victory on Ship Street, Fiacc used irony to highlight the killing of two young girls who died when a car bomb was detonated outside a Catholic-owned bar in the now-vanished dockland area of Sailortown.
Gerald Dawe claimed that Fiacc was “much overlooked by the critical and literary establishment” and he was a “perennial outsider”. However, recognition from his peers did come on occasion, such as his election to Aosdána in 1981, the year he won the Poetry Ireland Award.
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