The Poetry Wall

Claire Keogh

President Michael D Higgins adds his composition Stardust to the Farmgate Poetry wall in October 2018

The Poetry Wall at the Farmgate Café Cork

Gerry Murphy, poet

An ini­tia­tive of Gerry Mur­phy, Poet, and Kay Harte, ‘the poetry wall’, which is on per­ma­nent view in the Far­m­gate Café din­ing room, is a unique col­lec­tion of poems, by Cork, Irish and inter­na­tional poets, com­mis­sioned by the Far­m­gate Café in 2005 to cel­e­brate Cork’s year as Euro­pean Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture. Known locally as ‘The Great Wall of Cork’, this won­der­ful col­lec­tion of framed prints based on hand­writ­ten poems forms a dis­tinc­tive and unique poetic instal­la­tion encased in a lin­ear dis­play cab­i­net sus­pended along the inside wall of the din­ing room over pun­ters and patrons. Such was the response to the project how­ever, the total num­ber of poems exceeded the ini­tial dimen­sions and so four extra poems in two pairs book­end the cab­i­net, com­plet­ing this unique collection.

Part of the Far­m­gate Café and Mar­ket lore, The Great Wall of Cork was offi­cially ‘launched’ on Fri­day 13th Octo­ber 2006 at 6pm. To cel­e­brate this beau­ti­ful instal­la­tion, Gerry Mur­phy and Sen­a­tor Bren­dan Ryan opened the exhi­bi­tion with the help of Tomás Ó Canainn (poet and musi­cian) on uileann pipes with Nuala (his daugh­ter) accom­pa­ny­ing her father on fid­dle. A very spe­cial occa­sion, friends and poets gath­ered for an evening of music, song and poetry, food and drink in the ancient Irish tra­di­tion. Sadly five of the con­trib­u­tors have died sub­se­quent to their con­tri­bu­tions, Michael Davitt, Greg O’Donoghue, Seán Ó Tuama, Tomás Ó Canainn, and more recently John Montague.

In Octo­ber 2018 Pres­i­dent Michael D Hig­gins vis­ited the Far­m­gate Café and, sur­rounded by some of the city’s best-​known poets, play­wrights and authors, added his own hand­writ­ten com­po­si­tion Star­dust to the poetry wall.