ESSE QUAM VIDERI (to be rather than to seem to be)
"What must it be to be someone else?" - Gerard Manley Hopkins
( In honour of Honora O' Sullivan becoming a great grandmother yet again)
there I am all 2lbs of me and nameless as yet
and so for all these 67 years it's a Dónall I've been
haven't been anything else all my life
but now with Storm Ciarán roaring in
I remember me Mam telling me that I was due to be a Ciarán
because of my hair black as anything and sideburns to boot
I was obviously doing my best Elvis impersonation
and this was after all 1956
she said I was her own 'little dark-haired one'
and would I have been a different man I sometimes wonder
would the name change the who I would have become
I often think of this alternative self
wonder how he got on in a parallel universe
but a Dónall I was and have remained
so I guess I will just have to learn to live with my self
and Dónall of course transforms into the Irish "World Mighty...Spear Power!"
a hard name to be sure to have to live up to but I'll give it a good go
Ciarán (is a traditionally male given name of Irish origin. It means "little dark one" or "little dark-haired one", produced by appending a diminutive suffix to ciar ("black", "dark"). It is the masculine version of the name Ciara.
But sure as Oscar once told me: “Be yourself, everyone else is taken. In order to be oneself, one has to take risks, to accept that one is not perfect and to be courageous enough to say what one really thinks” And says I to the Wilde man: "Sure, I will surely...so I will!"
And so it is I have become the man you see before you...as Dónall as anything!