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!

A Dónall by any other name would still be as sweet!