Album Notes

As my friends at Scoil Ghaeilge Ghearóid Tóibín, The Gerry Tobin Irish Language School, in Babylon, New York, already know, I am beginning to write Irish versions of poems I wrote in English a half century or more ago. I am trying to reproduce the same rhyme schemes in the Irish rather than make simple literal translations. This is slow work because making the new rhymes in the Irish is almost like writing new poems that still have to be as close as possible to the English language versions.

I began the work in December 2003, in no great rush, and completed seven Irish versions by February. Then came a long interruption of about eight months when I spent most of my spare time on other things. It wasn't until near the end of the year in November that I got around to finishing three more. That makes ten all together.

I recorded these poems in April of 2005.