Reconstructions. Steafán Hanvey

      

      Reconstructions

      Dedicated to Sini –

      the one who holds it all together,

      and to our greatest works so far,

      Lumi and Luca.

      Reconstructions

      ‘The Troubles’ in Photographs and Words

      Poems & Words by Steafán Hanvey

      Photographs by Bobbie Hanvey

      First published in 2019 by

      Merrion Press

      An imprint of Irish Academic Press

      10 George’s Street

      Newbridge

      Co. Kildare

      Ireland

       www.merrionpress.ie

      © Steafán Hanvey & Bobbie Hanvey, 2019

      Words © Steafán Hanvey

      Photographs © Bobbie Hanvey Photographic Archives, John J. Burns Library, Boston College, Massachusetts

      Courtesy of the Trustees of Boston College

      Editor: Desmond C. Fitzgibbon

      9781785372162 (Cloth)

      British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

      An entry can be found on request

      Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

      An entry can be found on request

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

      Graphic Design: Amanda / Creanda Oy and Steafán Hanvey

      Interior design by www.jminfotechindia.com

      Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro 11.5/15

      Jacket front: PIRA Bomb in Belfast city centre. Bobbie Hanvey Photographic Archives (MS2001.039),

      John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

      Jacket back: RUC officers from Clogher station with Sarah Primrose.

      Photographic title: bh012536

      Bobbie Hanvey Photographic Archives (MS2001.039), John J. Burns Library, Boston College.

      Contents

       Acknowledgements

       Foreword by Billy O’Callaghan

       Introduction

       Biographies

       Late Developer

       All Key-Holders Attend … (The Devil’s in the Retail)

       Plan B (Unravelling Night)

       Gotcha!

       An Undertaking

       Mongrel Tongue (Between You, Be It!)

       The Most Trying of Colours (The Trickler)

       Carson-Parson

       Easter 1974

       Longley’s Lists

       Perspective (Another Day in Paradise)

       Trigger Treat

       The Way of Them

       Though I Walk in the Valley …

       Proxy (Ghost in the Machine)

       The Ninth Hole

       17 (Cause to Grieve)

       Photographic Credits

      ADVANCE PRAISE FOR RECONSTRUCTIONS

      ‘Reconstructions is a wondrous outburst. Steafán Hanvey’s poems are an unrestrained response to the work of his father, the great Irish photographer Bobbie Hanvey. They are bold improvisations on his themes of conflict and community. These heartfelt refractions find their own shape. They are nobly dishevelled, and they cry out to be read.’

      Michael Longley

      ‘This unique and heady blend of documented violence and photographic memory poses timely questions for present social understanding of the way we were. [Its] drama and tragicomic wit ... is both potent and devastating ....’

      Medbh McGuckian

      ‘Authentic, innovative and keenly honed prose poetry ... An astonishing and visceral work that strikes clean to the often-dark but always-shining heart of Northern Ireland. A heady combination of words that set the pictures alight.’

      Billy O’Callaghan

      ‘Steafán Hanvey was eyewitness to the genesis of so many of his father’s famous photographs, and it is obvious that the father’s iconic work has lain in the darkroom of the son’s memory and imagination, waiting to be developed into prose-poems of poignancy and power, showcased now in Reconstructions, a stunning symbiosis of word and image.’

      Adrian Rice

      We did not write in Yeats’s shadow, as some would have it, but in the lighthouse beam of his huge accomplishment.

      – Michael Longley

Acknowledgements

      This book’s making wasn’t entirely of my own doing – far from it. My darling Sini must take the lion’s share of the credit for ensuring I got this book over the line. Thanks for putting up with me and for all the heavy lifting over this past few months. I love you.

      Thanks to my English teachers in school – Mrs Tumelty, Mr Ritchie and Ms Kelly – for developing my love of the language, encouraging me, and believing in my potential. Ms Kelly said I could be a writer but that I’d need a good editor. Luckily, I found one in Des Fitzgibbon, who acted as my touchstone and whetstone throughout.

      Thanks also to Katherine Fox and Christian Dupont at Boston College for granting permission to use my father’s photographs for this book. I’m also grateful to Catherine Giltrap at Trinity College Dublin, for her help, support and friendship.

      Thanks to my da for getting the photographs print-ready for this book, and for all the encouragement and positive feedback along the way.

      Thanks to my mother for instilling in me a love of books from an early age, and for encouraging the university route. I still remember the day you took me down to join Downpatrick library and to buy my first books at the Music and Book shop.

      Thanks to Seppo Vehviläinen for help with my old back and for the use of your summer cabin.

      Thanks to Billy O’Callaghan, one of my favourite writers, for your endorsement in the Foreword. It means the world to me.

      Thanks to Medbh McGuckian, Michael Longley and Adrian Rice for sharing your thoughts on the book. This was unexpected and immense.