The Journal

I Didn’t Know by Helen McNulty

I Didn’t Know by Helen McNulty

I Didn’t Know by Helen McNulty — I didn’t know that having more to do in life meant you get more done and give more to the world. I didn’t know that having more niggling pains in your body meant you spring out of bed earlier and with more appreciation. I didn’t know…

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helen McNulty Photography Ice Drumskinny Bog Moss frozen heather

Jack Frost Came.

Hidden away in a farm house in the middle of no where. Where no thing happens but frost on moss and sun rises and sun sets and little girl games and twinkling rushes. Isn’t it lucky and grand to be here and hiding. When the vibe beyond the hilly, cold wilderness is…

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Dr Bach Daddy Pencil on Paper by Irish Artist and Writer Helen McNulty

Dr Bach

Dr Bach aka Daddy on New Year’s Day 2020 | Pencil on Paper | 21 x 14cm | January 2020-⁠-⁠-⁠When we were children, daddy would make for each of us our own unique concoction of the Bach Flower Remedies. I needed cherry plum, mustard and something else I can’t remember….

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MYTH – Peripheries:POST

“The myth is a surviving fragment of the psychic life of the infancy of the race whilst the dream is the myth of the individual.” — Karl Abraham Abraham said that we create myths as a collective dream, a way to understand our desires, needs, darkest capabilities and…

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The House of the Gardener Who Never Stops Working, Watercolour on Paper, 14 x 9cm, 2022

The House of the Gardener Who Never Stops Working

The House of the Gardener Who Never Stops Working, Watercolour on Paper, 14 x 9cm, 2022 The Gardener.   A little voice called ‘Mammy’ each morning. She made her way into our room, from her little mess of teddies. ‘Programme’ or ‘What Now?’ were on the menu for…

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The Hills Above Agios Giordos, Watercolour on Paper, 14 x 9 cm, 2022

The Hills Above Agios Giordos

Entropy. A family; A mum wears a black bikini, thirty years old, she has tattoos on her legs and arms of flowers, A dad wears tight shorts, thirty years old, he has tattoos on his back of a map to somewhere, A daughter wears a stringy pink bikini, twelve years old, A…

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Ubiquitous

They say Padre Pio could be in two places at once.Then again, I may be mistaken,It may have been St Francis of Assisi -I never was good at remembering the saints. We had a picture of Padre PioAbove the door going into the back porch,The Sacred Heart in the living…

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Painting Asta

Painting Asta I held your image in my hand and didn’t know that it wasn’t you. Two paintings sit abandoned. Like a tiger ghost estate. An ambition that was too much. Now I can’t go back. To where you were. To see your hair. To see your chair. To feel the woollen hug….

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Nymphaeaceae by Helen McNulty

Nymphaeaceae

Nymphaeaceae – Digital Image, 2007, Helen McNulty Nymphaeaceae Among tea breaks and doing the dishesMy memory floats like the water lilies.Pretty little teacup flowersSailing by on waxy green saucers. Under the spell of old glory (that never was, really)I slip head…

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First Portrait

First Portrait

I couldn’t move, but I could draw.

I had a green pen, almost all the ink was gone. It was scraping along the little book I had set aside to put the notes of what it was to be mummy for the first time. 

The book was small. 

I forgot that my eyesight is not the best.…

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Preparation for Lockdown

Preparation for Lockdown.by Helen McNulty March 2020‌‌I am making listspreparing for lockdownalmost believing in the possibilityof an absurd end. ‌A tingle in my nose scared me half to death.Worldometer announced the first fatality in Ireland. Who is this democratic…

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The Byre

The byre was left there with material traces of the two of them in it. The house locked up and bits of medicine and old bandages lay on the windowsill and spoke of final days of nursing and comforting. A tilly lamp whose glass was covered over with layers of dust, had…

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Address

Wicklow Mountains, Ireland

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