Liam Ó Muirthile walked the Camino Française, a total of 770 km, across the Pyrenees from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela in autumn 2015. He journeyed alone, carried a backpack and stayed in the pilgrim hostels along the route.
He shares with us his thoughts on the landscape and the people whom he met on his pen pilgrimage and personal journey. He recalls the work of other poets and the long-established links between Ireland and Spain. As the Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez said:
Spain is deeply rooted in reality, a country of Catholicism rather than Christianity, of churches before spirituality, of roots and feet before wings and for that reason the best Spanish lyrics are mystical: reaching for the sky, for flight.
The author keeps his feet firmly on the ground, quite literally, but here and there he takes flight, Spanish-style.
Moira Sweeneys inspired photographs illuminate the pilgrim path.
Áine Ní Ghlinn is a writer and poet whose work often explores silence — the unspoken, the unsayable. Her writing delves into quietness, absence, and the emotional spaces we hesitate to name.
Her poetry gives voice to those on the margins—individuals who cannot speak for themselves, or whose stories are too often overlooked.
This is a collection of new and selected poems, with English translations by Theo Dorgan.