Pride Magazine 2025

PROUD

write into that. In this poem, the girls find the space and freedom they need in the city, to be themselves, to be happy and to be a lot more than just charming. The girls here represent every couple in love. Everybody deserves this space”. Joanne McCarthy writes in Waterford in both English and Irish. Her poetry is widely published and anthologised. Her publication history includes Poetry Ireland Review, Aneas, Comhar, Rattle and The Stinging Fly. She participated in Céadlínte Poetry Ireland Introductions, 2024. She is a Máire Mac an tSaoi Irish language poetry distinction awardee of 2022. She was awarded an Arts Council Bursary in Literature (Irish language). Joanne is co-editor of the literary journal The Waxed Lemon and is currently reading poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast.

GIRLS OF FAIRHILL BY JOANNE MCCARTHY (SHE/HER)

AFTER CATULLUS 5

Take my hand girl, I don’t give a fiddler’s for the talk of the town, for the twitching curtains and the nosebags with feck all else to talk about. We’ll run hand and hand down Panna and when we land on the bridge we’ll have our first kiss over the Lee, hundreds more up Patrick’s Hill and thousands more up Shandon. We’ll climb those rickety steps, my hand on your back, on your waist, on that fine ass. We’ll lie down on the beams at the top of the tower and I will taste every last bit of you. The four barefaced clocks will tell their lies but not the Bells, the Bells will ring out for two Fairhill girls and their infinite kisses.

SOCIALS

Joanne McCarthy edits The Waxed Lemon, check it out on socials Instagram: @thewaxedlemon Facebook: The Waxed Lemon Joanne will be hosting a workshop entitled Lipstick and Lemons: A Space to Write as part of Cork Pride on Sunday 27th July.

ABOUT

“An áit a bhfuil do chroí is ann a thabharfas do chosa thú” Your feet will bring you to where your heart lies.

Joanne McCarthy Orla Egan

Speaking about this poem, McCarthy says love finds its way into all her poems. “I am interested in how love prevails, despite all the obstacles in its way. I am interested in the human and the sacred. Girls of Fairhill is a poem close to my heart. I was reading Catullus 5 when I thought about a reworking, and it came to me in the shape of this poem. I grew up in Cork knowing the lyrics of “Boys of Fairhill” off by heart. I always thought the boys got a lot of space! I guess I needed to

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