About Niamh McNally
Niamh McNally is an Irish poet from Belfast. From her school years in St.Louise’s Comprehensive College, Niamh has always had a passion for writing poetry. Niamh completed her Masters in Ulster University where she found space to explore and develop her writing whilst co-creating and editing The Paperclip; a student led publication. Since then, Niamh has taken poetry workshops in The Seamus Heaney Homeplace and has been published in The Tulsa Review, Tír na nÓg, Capsule Stories, and The Galway Review. Just recently, her poetry featured on the BBC and in an NI Human Rights Commission film about the climate crisis, and last year Niamh’s poem ‘If Stone Could Speak’ was showcased by Bushmills as promotion for The Causeway Collection.
Niamh strives to combine her devotion to the written and spoken word with her unconditional love for the natural world, to help tackle the climate crisis whilst trying to inspire as many people as she can through her writing.
Niamh’s poem Defining Hope was commissioned for and premiered at the Business in the Community 2021 Responsible Business Awards in Northern Ireland. It was filmed by Chris Eva, Sub-Culture Productions. Please contact suzi.mcilwain@bitcni.org.uk if you would like to use this poem for any purpose.
‘Defining Hope’
By Niamh McNally
I never imagined hope as being anything
other than a ‘thing with feathers’
described in a poem as perching in the soul
never asking a thing of us
Or how hope was composed in bird song
by a poet who defined the
voice of a confined bird
and rhymed it with freedom.
This past year I have thought about hope.
That word.
A word holding so much weight
in a world filled with uncertainty.
Being alone at home for months during
isolation and separation
from family and friends has caused many physical and mental scars.
The cost of time lost can never be healed
when restrictions ease.
Or watching leaves change colour from the same spot
as you daydream afternoons away after just waking up.
In a poem about rain, I painted Belfast’s skyline
with city gulls and chimney cliffs,
never imagining that I’d could be landlocked during lockdown
and would spend so much time
filling my mind with ‘what ifs’, and ‘where I could have been’ by nows,
amidst the rows over vaccines and social distancing.
Retreating to nature, I looked up at the Mournes
during an August downpour.
Metaphoric rings of mist circled Slieve Donard.
A waterfall I spotted was flooded
and Newcastle was nestled quietly below clouds
that faded into the sea.
To my left, two little girls in pink welly boots,
held each other upright.
One at a time, balancing on one foot, the boots came flying off.
They ran into a puddle, muddled with soggy socks and dirty water and screamed with absolute joy.
There it was. That split second. The tonal shift I needed,
lifted by human connection. Interaction.
Hope.
Hope this time rhymes with
smiling eyes above masks in the
line for the bus.
Hope followed that lorry driver home
after unloading crates one morning
he went out of his way
to give my mum soda bread
on her way home to bed
after a night shift in the NHS.
Hope is in actions of business owners
respecting their staff and
their lives outside of work.
Hope is home-schooling the children before work,
the rushed Zoom meetings
in your pyjama bottoms and or needing
days off for mental well-being.
Hope is every person working for the
community, the charities, porters,
and key workers taking responsibility
constantly risking their own lives for others.
Hope is when profit takes a back seat
and we retreat to the things that really matter:
Seeing family. Spending time with friends. Embracing the
natural world. Witnessing life coming alive again.
Rediscovering the beauty of where we live.
Waiting for the darkness to lift at the end
the tunnelled cliff under Mussenden Temple.
For the breath of light to show Downhill Beach
from the train tracks
and watching
the city I know all too well
open its arms on the banks of the Foyle.
And with life comes time. Or the lack of it.
The sand in our worldly hourglass is
running out at a catastrophic rate.
Recent warnings of Gulf Stream
collapse means that switching
to a greener way of life is not only
essential but we face an existential threat.
This tipping point for humanity is
acknowledging that treacherous rain
one day after an extreme heatwave
is a clear warning sign and not
just an inconvenience to our everyday lives.
When we were affected by the threat to our lungs and bodies,
principle and morality worked together.
Funding was put in the right place,
and we, as a human race
united, which literally changed the world by
fighting the unforgiving virus.
If we treated this crisis like a crisis, then
why are we not doing the same for our planet
which is struggling to breathe and
dying every second?
I never imagined hope as being anything
other than a ‘thing with feathers’
described in a poem as perching in the soul
never asking a thing of us
But I am asking something from you now.
The fact we are still here, means that there is a small window of hope.
We need to stop clipping the wings of our planet,
which we are holding captive for future generations.
To set our bird free and save humanity,
leaders need to act responsibly, and
take this confining cage away completely.
To seize the only time, we have left… right now.
Then and only then, can hope become change.
Follow Niamh
Twitter: @NiamhyMcNally
Instagram: @niamhymcnally