Eilín de Paor
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edepaor.bsky.social
Eilín de Paor
@edepaor.bsky.social
1.2K followers 1.6K following 410 posts
She/Her. Dublin. Recent PhD: Transition from School to Adult Life: perspectives of young adults with intellectual disabilities, families & service leaders. Interests: Inclusive Research, Social Justice, Choir, Gaeilge, Poetry https://linktr.ee/edepaor
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edepaor.bsky.social
This @manderleypress.bsky.social book is such a joy. Life-affirming escapism. I just spent 10 mins on Google Maps trying (& failing) to find a tiny alley off E 71st St that Hanff describes as a perfect English mews. Now I want to go to NYC to seek it out. There must/should be a map of Hanff spots🤔💡.
Shot of front cover of “Letters from New York” by Helene Hanff. It has a jaunty yellow spine and a line drawing of a woman with glasses walking a white scotty dog, with a backdrop of hedges/trees and NY skyscrapers. Screenshot from the book, Page 2 of 2: …..“blossoms and there was nobody to open the snapdragons; but more than that, she missed him. 'He was a lovely bumble bee,' she told me sadly. "The two of us worked out there together, we never bothered each other; we were companions.' Well, last week I was on her terrace one afternoon, and I don't know what made me ask, 'Did your bumble bee ever come back?' And Nina's mouth set in a disapproving line. 'His son was here this morning, she said. 'He's an ado-lescent, he has no manners. He kept flying in my face. And he dashed all over the place, from this flower to that, and then back to the first one. He hasn't any idea what he's doing!' 'He'll learn, I said. 'One day he'll be grown up and sedate, and you'll probably be sorry. Last year Nina's son, Claudie, was an adolescent. Now he's finished college, he's grown up and independent, hes joined the Marines and you have to call him Chuck.” Screenshot from the book, page 1 of 2: “This bafled me, because bird-watchers had persuaded me that birds are easily frightened. All year round when Im walking in the Park, singing or kicking leaves, I am shushed by bird-watchers who tiptoe up to a tree and stand looking up with out breathing, for fear of scaring the birds away. So I consulted Nina about this contradiction. 'Birds, said Nina judiciously, 'don't like bird-watchers. Birdwatchers stare at them, invading their privacy, so birds hide from them. Dogs pay no attention to the birds, so the birds like them.' I gotta tell you about Nina's bumble bee. Last year a bee came every day to pollinate her terrace. The old wooden terrace door had a hole in the top, and when the bee got tired he crawled into the hole and took a nap. But last fall Nina had a new door installed. And the next day the bee came and worked, and then looked for his nap hole. He searched more and more frantically for it, before he gave up and flew off. And this spring he didn't come back. Nina was inconsolable. Her orange tree had no”….
October 30, 2025 at 9:45 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
My mother likes miniatures. She’s 5 foot tall and believes nothing in the world should be any bigger than it needs to be. She is constantly trimming things - tote bags, sleeping bags, walking polls. She loves birds, but only the little ones #smallisbeautiful
2 garden bird feeders hooked on a poll, protected from large birds by an umbrella, attached to the poll with cable ties. A garden feeder surrounded by a cage, to limit access for all but the smallest birds.
September 20, 2025 at 12:18 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
Passed my PhD viva today. Minor corrections and the customary college red tape left, but the finish line is well in sight. Phew! (Never again😅)
Photo of a draft thesis with dog-eared multi-coloured sticky tabs.
August 19, 2025 at 4:47 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
I had a really enjoyable visit to the Connections Arts Centre #ConnectingArtistsCollective exhibition at RCSI this week & left filled with infectious positive energy. More info in ALT. The exhibit moves to Belfast next @universityofatypical.org
#InclusiveArts #Neurodiversity #IntellectualDisability
Picture of a painting by Peter Kehoe: "Double Trouble" (two foxes huddled together against a backdrop of lush green foliage and grass). For the artist’s bio, visit: https://www.connectionsartscentre.ie/peter-kehoe Picture is of 3 art cards and a flyer for the Connection Arts Centre. The art cards feature paintings by: Bearnard Durnin (a sea plane landing - white plane and light blue sea spray, navy sea and dark blue mountains tinged with golden light), Rachel Connell (a red plane against a blue sky with white clouds) and Pamela Kavanaugh (a cheerful brown pug dog against a white background with lots of multi-coloured spots). For more information on the artists, visit: www.connectionartscentre.ie/collective
July 20, 2025 at 1:28 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
Mrs Barry’s daughter called to the door unexpectedly today 🥲💐
Transplant I never met you Mrs Barry but the garden teemed as you intended, that first summer. A yellow rose in every bed–– a tester card from cream to corn. You were alive then still, I think, and not just in the flowers. I found a Mother’s Day card in the matted dust beneath the stairs, and old sunglasses (yellow-framed, of course). We posted them to your solicitor. We watched the roses fade, wondering if deadheading was an option, sending notes to companies to take you off their listings. NOT KNOWN AT THIS ADDRESS, we put. That wasn’t true. This address knew you to the bone. Eilín de Paor
July 16, 2025 at 1:49 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
MacNeice’s drunkenness of things being various. (out of season).
Multi-coloured rose bush in a neighbour’s front garden. Red, pink, yellow and combinations of those colours.
June 5, 2025 at 7:22 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
Looking forward to reading my newest poetry purchase @lukemorganpoet.bsky.social @arlenhouse.bsky.social @booksupstairs.bsky.social
Dublin launch 14:00 Sunday next, 1st June at Books Upstairs. Congratulations Luke!
Cover of book. Luke Morgan. Blood Atlas. Winner of The Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Ward. Arlen House. Colour drawing of a galleon ship in full sail.
May 29, 2025 at 6:52 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
Hit a write-up wall after weeks full throttle, so took today off to read poetry, drink tea, and finish watching #DyingforSex. If you haven’t seen it, do! Just make sure you have tissues at the ready towards the end. Michelle Williams & Jenny Slate deserve all the awards.
Hospital waiting room chairs - William Williams as Molly and Michelle Slate as Nikki, waiting for an appointment with a blue folder of medical records.
April 14, 2025 at 8:26 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
T minus 30 days to thesis submission. It’s been a full-on last 6 months. I won’t be sad to spend less time with this view from the boffice and more time getting actual light and fresh air 🤞💻☕️
Laptop, book and diagram open and ready to start work for the day. Messy bedroom clutter in the background. View of rooftops and chimneys. Trees and the Dublin Botanic Gardens palm house in the background.
April 8, 2025 at 9:17 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
Pádraig Ó Tuama getting under the skin/fluff of us all, as he does. 🐥
Eat This Bread The way you hold your mouth open and you hop after your mother, wanting food right from her mouth. The way you ask and ask and ask as if you know you'll die if you don't. The way you swallow, then open up your mouth again. You don't know what satisfaction is. The way you tantrum your wings. You ball of air and emptiness. Your cheeps are me me me. You are unceasing. A baby. A bomb. You are all hunger, no flight or song. The way the light shines through the tissue of your beak. Your eyes wide. Round. The raw need, the pink demand of you. I can't stand you. Front cover of a poetry book: ‘Timely and timeless' Raymond Antrobus KITCHEN HYMNS Pádraig Ó Tuama CHEERIO POETRY
March 14, 2025 at 8:03 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
💕
Balcony scene from Westside Story 1961 movie. Maria and Tony looking into each others’ eyes.
January 31, 2025 at 12:58 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
One type of orange I’m glad to see back 🩸🍊
Cup of tea beside a pot of peeled blood orange segments, beside some books on a desk.
January 20, 2025 at 10:53 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
Metro Goldwyn Mayer trade mark image of a roaring lion.
January 18, 2025 at 10:44 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
Hard for them to meet both needs I guess, in the narrow space, and I’m glad the cyclists have a good wide space. I just think they could/should have made the walking bit as wide. We’re not cars - no need to dissuade us 😜. Oh well 🤷🏻‍♀️, won’t stop us using it and lovely to get back to the swans.
A pair of swans at dusk on the Royal Canal in Dublin. Straw-coloured autumn rushes running alongside the water and weedy grass in the foreground.
January 16, 2025 at 11:37 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
A brilliant project. Occupational Therapy at its very best.
Yellow Days Introduction Yellow Days was a collaboration between the Memory Harbour and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Arts Office. What began as a conversation about creativity and brain health, grew into a 4-week funded programme, where friendships were made, poems were written, stories were shared, and brain health was promoted. In short, magic happened. We could feel it in the room, and we are delighted to share that magic with you now, through these pages. Each member of the Harbour Poets had been seen individually in the Memory Harbour and invited to join the poetry group to promote their brain health. Each member still had the brain health challenge of planning and organising their time, getting to the group, beginning a new routine, meeting new people and learning names, as well as challenging their language skills to reflect and write. We know that changes in memory impacts hugely on confidence and how a person navigates the worla. Together, Poet Grace Wilentz and I created a programme that would take us out of the factual world, where changes in our brain are most challenged, to a world of feeling, opinion, reflection and creativity. And most importantly, hope. Grace guided us through a close reading of a poem each week and created a quiet, calm, safe space for us to refect on our feelings of the poem. From this reflective space, we wrote poems none of us thought we could write, which allowed us to see ourselves in a new way. And therein lies the magic. That a diagnosis should never define how we see ourselves and what we believe we are capable of. We are more than that. We are people who have lived lives and embodied our stories. We can draw on our long-term memories and emotional memories to create poems. Our hearts and souls are intact and in this safe place every week, we poured them out and shared them with each other. Changes in our brain does not limit a person from being creative, trying new things, making new friends and challenging ourselves. What does limit the person from achieving these things is not having access to skilled facilitators and a supportive environment. The poems in this pamphlet show how with the right supports, the right space, trust and collaboration, our full selves, even the parts that are challenging us, can find their way onto the page and be celebrated. Catherine Keogh, Senior Occupational Therapist The Memory Harbour
January 16, 2025 at 9:57 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
Had a very enjoyable visit to Dún Laoghaire in South County Dublin this evening, in the company of my Dad. I grew up near there but it’s a good distance from my adult home. We ate chips on the East Pier and then went to a poetry pamphlet launch at the fabulous Lexicon Library.
Dusk, looking South across the bay to Glasthule and Dalkey from our chip-eating-perch on a bench on the back side of the East Pier. The sky is clear and pastel-streaked. Sunset, taken from the pier, looking West, back towards Dún Laoghaire town. The sky is streaked with mud-blue, grey-purple, grey-black and golden-yellow-orange. In the foreground, there is lit up pier concrete and the navy sea. In the background, the town is lit up with building lights and residual Christmas decorations. Deeping dark, with the sun still setting. See last alt for description, as this photo was taken just 15 seconds later. Photo of the front cover of “Yellow Days” by the Harbour Poets. Yellow background with simplified geometric sun semi-circles.
January 16, 2025 at 9:49 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
Henry VIII would be faster getting dressed than my teenage son 🙄⏱️
Picture of actor Damian Lewis in costume for his role as Henry VIII in the BBC adaptation of the Wolf Hall books by Hilary Mantel.
January 7, 2025 at 8:14 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
There are so many great poems is this issue #144 of #PoetryIrelandReview edited by @jessicatraynor.bsky.social . I particularly love this impressively-crafted prose poem by Bill Manhire, for its humour and deceptive simplicity. I must look up more of his work.
Photo of cover of issue #144 of Poetry Ireland Review, edited by Jessica Traynor. The cover is a black background with art by Denise Nestor “White Butterflies” - an image of white butterflies with black spots, clustered to form the shape of a human brain. Bill Manhire CRONIES I put a clown in a story once. I was just starting out in the writing trade, and I was a bit lost, like an out-of work actor haunting the hospital corridors. Of course there's no shame in that - sometimes we all have to freeze in a doorway while the world goes by. Now, at the other end of a long career, I have been considering the viability of an escaped prisoner or, possibly better, a renegade priest. Yes, I agree, we all move on! The renegade priest comes towards me. He wants all my money. Hard to know if this is worth pursuing, and maybe 'money' isn't quite right there. The renegade priest comes towards me. He says he knows where I live. Or does he want my wife? I think I will have to think hard about all this, then ask the group.
January 7, 2025 at 7:40 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
Remembering dearly missed friend Dr Tina McGrath especially this week, as we approach her 2nd anniversary on the 6th of January. A group of friends & colleagues came together to write this remembrance piece, published by the @aotinews.bsky.social Irish Jr of OT before Christmas.
The text is too long for ALT unfortunately, but the PDF can be viewed at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vheaCF4bKzXeLhYn6a4xqdGRaahondrR/view?usp=drivesdk Dr. Tina McGrath. Photo taken at the AOTI conference in Oct 2022. Tina is wearing a sky blue t-shirt, colourful silk jacket and red head scarf. She’s smiling and holding a pink cocktail.
January 4, 2025 at 11:48 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
For special occasions we use a lace tablecloth hand-crocheted by my great grandmother on the passage from České Budějovice to Oregon c.1900. With use, it’s developed a few snags. Not sure how to go about repairing them, I asked my 84 yr old mum yesterday for help. She’s already on the job 🥰🪡.
A close-up of a small area of a hand-crocheted lace table cloth, cream coloured and lying on a grey backing cloth for contrast. A spool of cream embroidery tread lies in the corner of the photo.
December 26, 2024 at 1:13 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
When and why did we ever stop wearing napkins like this‽
A still of Thomas Cromwell in Episode 3 of the televised Wolf Hall (2024). He is seated at a feast and wears a large and long serviette draped from one shoulder across his breast.
December 11, 2024 at 1:31 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
Still a lovely jolt each time I pass this award on the mantelpiece. I had a great night at the ceremony last week, peeping behind the book industry curtain, and chatting with the lovely poets and story writers at our table. Winning was a very happy bonus surprise.
Eilín de Paor (woman in pink dress, black shrug, dark bobbed hair, white skin, 40-something, smiling) photographed holding a glass and wood award - A Post Irish Book Awards 2024 New Irish Writing Poetry Category. Screenshot of winner announcement from Irish Book Wards website. Photo of Eilín de Paor with this text: New Irish Writing Best Poetry in association with the Irish Independent. Photo of newspaper article from Irish Independent (26 Oct 2024): Poetry by Eilín de Paor Eilín lives in Dublin. Her conversational pamphlet In the Jitterfritz of Neon, written with Damien B Donnelly, was published by Hedgehog Poetry. Her poems have appeared in The Stony Thursday Book, Banshee, lamb, The Storms, An Capall Dorcha, Skylight 47, The Waxed Lemon, The Frogmore Papers and other journals. Linktree & X: @edepaor ONIONSKIN Red sugar paper cover, thin foolscap pages, hand-typed, spiral-bound, 50p of saved up pocket money from the bargain bin of a Glasthule book shop. Poems about love and drink and loss, small ink drawings in the margins - faces of men, bent trees, spilt pints. I read that pamphlet till the binding cracked, till the paper greased translucent. Those dark adult words, the sadness of a man whose name I forget, whose book l've lost. Selfie of 3 smiling people at A Post Irish Book Awards ceremony: Eilín de Paor between John Mitchinson and Andy Miller (both of Backlisted Podcast).
December 5, 2024 at 10:44 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
Still thinking about #MartinWaddell & his lifetime achievement award at last night’s #APIBA #IrishBookAwards . I was not familiar with him, but should have been, having devoured his Catherine Sefton books as a child & read his picture books to my own kids. A charming person & accomplished author!
Martin Waddell & Eilín de Paor at the Irish Book Awards. Strategically placed books emoji sticker due to (I now realise) a too-low neckline 😳.
November 28, 2024 at 7:39 PM
edepaor.bsky.social
Lovely to meet you both last night at the #IrishBookAwards #AnPostIrishBookAwards, Andy and John @backlisted.bsky.social and thank you for indulging me in a selfie. I hope you enjoy/ed your time in Dublin. Come back soon for a live podcast!
Selfie of John Mitchinson, Eilín de Paor & Andy Miller, in our respective fineries.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 AM
edepaor.bsky.social
It’s the A Post National Book Awards tomorrow and myself and my writing group pal Bill both have shortlisted poems, so we get to attend. I can’t wait! This gem of a book reading-related poem by James Tate is in my head today. I wonder if there’ll be any catfights 🐈‍⬛ 📚.
Text of The Bookclub, a poem by James Tate. The Bookclub Bobbie came home from her bookelub completely drunk and disheveled. Three buttons from her blouse were missing and she had scratches down both cheeks. "Jesus," I said, "what the hell happened to you?" "They all hated that book," she said, "you know, that one that had me crying all last week, about the girl's mother dying, and then her baby getting sick and her husband leaving her. They said it was corny, and I just couldn't take it. I couldn't sit there and make fun of that poor woman." "So what happened?" I said. "Well, Irene was laughing and that's when I got up and slapped her. And she punched me in the gut and I grabbed her hair and threw her to the floor and kicked her in the face. And then Rosie and Tina and that bitch Sonia from Leverett all jumped on me and punched me a hundred times and I didn't know what was happening." "So when did you get drunk?" I asked. "Oh, when it was all over we went out to Lucky 7 together and laughed and laughed about it." "A bunch of tough broads," I said. "Nah, they're all pussycats," she said, looking badly in need of repair.
November 26, 2024 at 3:37 PM