📖 Poem-by-Poem Study
Poem 1 · The Magdalene Sermon, 1989
Street
A man follows a dangerous butcher's daughter through a Gothic, atmospheric street. Power, mystery, and a deliberately unresolved ending.
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Poem 2 · Acts and Monuments, 1972
Lucina Schynning in Silence of the Night
A woman seeks solace in a ruined Cromwellian house under moonlight. History, personal loss, and spiritual transformation intertwined.
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Poem 3 · The Magdalene Sermon, 1989
Translation
Read at the reburial of Magdalene laundry women. A devastating tribute that gives voice to decades of enforced silence.
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Poem 4 · Acts and Monuments, 1972
Death and Engines
A burned plane wreck at Paris airport triggers a meditation on the inevitability of death, written as her father was dying.
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Poem 5 · The Girl Who Married the Reindeer, 2001
The Bend in the Road
A familiar bend in the road triggers memories of a sick child and loved ones who have passed. Memory preserved in nature.
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Poem 6 · The Sun Fish, 2009
To Niall Woods and Xenya Ostrovskaia
A wedding poem for her son — weaving Irish & Russian folklore, fairytale and scripture into a blessing that ends "happily ever after."
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🛠️ Revision Tools
All 6 Poems · Quote Drill
Flashcard Drill
Test every key quote from every poem. Flip-cards organised by poem — quote on the front, technique & analysis on the back.
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Cross-Poem Connections
Thematic Links
How the poems connect across shared themes — women's voices, history, death, memory, folklore, and mystery.
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Quick Tip for the Exam 📝
Always link poems together in your answers. Examiners reward students who can see Ní Chuilleanáin's work as a whole — her consistent themes of mystery, women's voices, history, and the extraordinary hidden in the ordinary. Use the Thematic Links file to practise this.
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