Time in Armagh

‘I do not think I could exaggerate the harshness of our schooling.’

This sequence of lyrics explores the author’s schooldays in Armagh, Ireland’s ecclesiastical capital, during World War II. In these poems ancient and personal histories are intertwined inside a collage of contemporary events. But, as always, Montague celebrates how, even in an atmosphere of organized repression, the instinct for love can prevail.