'The Pen Behind the Wire' launched at Féile Derry

Derry poet, Eoghan Mac Cormaic, affectionately known as Gino, has launched his anthology of gaol poetry at Féile Derry.

For younger readers, the anthology’s title ‘The Pen Behind the Wire’ is a fitting homage to Paddy McGuiggan’s anti-internment ballad - ‘The Men Behind the Wire’.

As Eoghan explained, the poems were written in the H-Blocks, mainly between 1981 and 1991.

Derry poet Eoghan Mac Cormaic.

“A couple of them were written before that, during the Blanket protest,” said Eoghan.

“I was on the Blanket Protest for four and a half or five years and when that ended and we began to have more opportunity to keep things and write things, I would have been writing and I would have been smuggling out poems and writings out. I also have a lot of diaries.

“Years later, when I got out of gaol, in 1991, my mother gave me back this huge big collection of comms and books and diaries. Amongst all that there was a bundle of poems and it was all ones I had kept with during the years in gaol.

“In my later years in prison, we had access to education so we had notebooks and jotters to write in and we could keep things, so I had some of those as well.”

Eoghan and Raymond McCartney at Saturday's launch of 'The Pen Behind the Wire'. (Photo courtesy of Charlie McMenamin)

Originally from the Top of the Hill area of Derry, Eoghan’s farsighted mother was Pauline (née Doran). His father was Eugene.
Eoghan revealed his mother had kept all of his writings safely hidden away.

“She took a lot of them across the border to the house of a family friend,” he said.

“In those days the house was still getting raided a lot and she didn’t want to lose the stuff.

“To be honest, I knew I had been smuggling stuff out but you forget that you have this massive collection of stuff. So she gave me about eight or ten big photo albums absolutely crammed full of all these comms. I scanned through some of it at the time.

“I came to Galway in 1991. I started a different life as a student then and the stuff stayed with me. It travelled around every time I moved house, every time I moved student flat, until I eventually got married and settled down. I always had this big box of books.

“Then during covid I sat down and said, ‘I am going to start reading through some of this and see if there is anything here worth doing’. Having that opportunity to look at all the material meant I was able to bring out a book of Irish language poetry at the beginning of this year and ‘The Pen Behind the Wire’ is the English language poetry now.”

‘The Pen Behind the Wire’ is the fourth book Eoghan has published in two years. His first book ‘Pluid’ was published by Coiscéim in 2020 and won the Oireachtas award in 2021.

“‘Pluid’ is not autobiographical,” said Eoghan, “because, although I am in the book, it is not about me, it is about the Blanket Protest.”

“A year later, An Fhuiseog, the publishing house of the Republican book shop in Belfast, published the second book, which was called ‘On The Blanket’.

“And these two poetry books have now been published. The Irish language poems were published by Coiscéim and ‘The Pen Behind the Wire’ was published by Green Island Books in Belfast.

Full house at the Museum of Free Derry for the launch of 'The Pen Behind the Wire. (Photo courtesy of Charlie McMenamin)

“There are three sections in ‘The Pen Behind the Wire’. They begin looking at life in gaol, dealing with gaol and the different things that would happen in a gaol.

“Then there is a section dealing with from the gaol looking out at what was happening politically in the world at that time, so there are references to Nelson Mandela, the Nicaraguan revolution.

“Some of these are intended to be a bit humorous and ironic and some of them are more serious in tone.

“The third section of the book is more reflective on getting released. It would be me saying, ‘I am about to get released here and I am going to be going back to my family and how are they feeling and my relationships with my mother and father and what they have done for me over the years’.”

Eoghan said one of his favourite poems in the anthology was ‘Creggan Hill’, which was written in memory of his friend Ciarán Fleming, who escaped from the H-Blocks in September 1983 and was killed in action on December 2, 1984.

It closes: ‘And sometimes, I think, the greatest loneliness is in coming to a place like this and knowing you’re gone and I’ll never hear your voice, see your face, touch your life again.’

“Even to this day, when I read that poem, I still find it moving because I still think about Ciarán,” said Eoghan.

“There is another poem which is called ‘On My First Bike’ which is about October 5, 1968, a rite of passage. It tells the story of me buying my first bike on the same day as basically the world was changing.

“‘The Pen Behind the Wire’ is a bit unusual as well because, at the back of the book, which contains about 76 poems, 36 of the poems have been recorded by different voices, people like Christy Moore, Gerry Adams, Danny Morrison, Martina Anderson, Raymond McCartney, and Tony Doherty, from the Museum of Free Derry, as well as my own family, my sister in Derry, Sarah McLaughlin.

“The recordings are on a website. There is a QR code beside each of the poems in the book, so when somebody buys the book, they can listen to Christy Moore reading one of the poems.

“The poems were really me shouting it out at the time, saying, ‘This is what I think’ and putting it down there. I think the messages they are carrying are fine for me and if somebody else likes them, great.”

'The Pen Behind the Wire' is now available locally in the Museum of Free Derry and Little Acorns Bookshop.