Oilithreach Pinn (Winner – Gradam Uí Shúilleabháin 2018)

Liam Ó Muirthile walked the Camino Française, a total of 770 km, across the Pyrenees from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela in autumn 2015. He journeyed alone, carried a backpack and stayed in the pilgrim hostels along the route.

He shares with us his thoughts on the landscape and the people whom he met on his pen pilgrimage and personal journey. He recalls the work of other poets and the long-established links between Ireland and Spain. As the Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez said:

‘Spain is deeply rooted in reality, a country of Catholicism rather than Christianity, of churches before spirituality, of roots and feet before wings … and for that reason the best Spanish lyrics are mystical: reaching for the sky, for flight.’
The author keeps his feet firmly on the ground, quite literally, but here and there he takes flight, Spanish-style.

Moira Sweeney’s inspired photographs illuminate the pilgrim path.