ICL Holds Music, Poetry and Prose Reading Event

On Thursday 16 January 2025, the Irish Club of Luxembourg (ICL) held a music, poetry and prose reading event at Sazio Restaurant in Luxembourg-Grund. 

The event began with a musical introduction by Luxembourg-based Irish singer and songwriter, Jon Meehan, who sang a trio of songs beginning with his composition, “Memories”. 

Irish poet Terry Adams, living in Luxembourg since 1990, then took to the floor to read a selection of poems and prose from his various books. His work centres around the six themes of family, social, mind, friends, world and endings. Poems not read in public before, with some exceptions, were shared with the audience.

Beginning with the theme of “family”, Terry  read the first poem he ever wrote, “Apt Comments”, written in May 1977, shortly after the death of his father. Five further moving poems in this category were shared including “Kyara The Solution”, written when his young granddaughter was unwell.

Social topics covered poems such as “The Sandes Men”, and “Price to Pay”. His first prose piece, Kilruttin Famine Grave, described a graveyard close to his home town that is now a town park. He spoke movingly of the many famine victims buried there: “our famine heroes will remain forever unknown.”

Three poignant “mind” poems followed, including, “Leaving Alone”, which described the harshness of dying alone and isolated during the Covid pandemic. “Leaving Alone” was the first poem of the collection published in the Centre National de Littérature, in 2020.

During the interval, Bernadette Alexander, ICL Vice President, welcomed the audience of approximately twenty attendees. She thanked both Terry and Jon and spoke of how this was the first time ICL has hosted an event of this kind. She expressed her gratitude to all committee members, especially Fiona Meehan, for organising the event. 

Jon Meehan entertained the audience during the break with his repertoire of lyrical and catchy songs, including “Shipwrecked,” describing the tenacity of human beings. 

Terry continued with his readings, covering the subject of “friends” which included an emotional “Daithi Missed Sorely”, dedicated to his deceased brother-in-law,  stating “Daithi, I miss your company”.

His light-hearted and humorous prose piece  “Linguistic Confusion” had the audience laughing at funny anecdotes that cause confusion when “Irish” and “American” English do not mean the same thing. 

 “Most Moral Army”, one of four poems Terry has written on the conflict in Gaza, formed part of his “world” topic, as did  “Gandhi, Hume, Mandela, King”, whom he described as “four of the men of peace”. 

Terry ended his touching and inspiring reading on the topic of “endings”. In the emotional and thought-provoking prose piece “Paddy’s Passing”, he spoke movingly about his uncle who spent 50 years living in an asylum close to Terry’s home. Until the age of sixteen, when Paddy passed, Terry had been unaware of his existence. 

Terry’s final poem “Memory” tied in nicely with the opening song “Memories”, before Jon brought the evening to a lively conclusion with further songs, including  “Someone like You” and “The Moon”.