A Hard and Bitter Circle

Stray Bullets

In this episode I'll be continuing to look at the aspect of Forgiveness and Recrimination which I began in the episode, 'I Bear No Grudge'. Given the amount of material I've gathered to date, I sense that the topic will continue on for several more episodes.
In this episode I employ two poems by John Hewitt: 'The Iron Circle' and 'The Bloody Brae' in the hope that they may assist in illuminating the complex nature of forgiveness in the context of sectarianism, attendant savagery and subsequent trauma.
Hewitt wrote 'The Bloody Brae' in 1936. It 'lay around until 1953, when [Hewitt] suddenly came on it [...]'.
Both 'The Iron Circle' and 'The Bloody Brae' are taken from:
The Collected Poems of John Hewitt, edited by Frank Ormsby, The Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 1991.
A partial glossary for The Bloody Brae:
'boording' entering into conversation
'guddling' catching [fish] by hand
'brae' rising ground
'sheugh' ditch
'yowe' ewe
The following link may be of cursory interest:
‘What about Islandmagee?’ Another version of the 1641 rebellion.
https://www.historyireland.com/what-about-islandmagee-another-version-of-the-1641-rebellion/

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