About My Music

Welcome to my music and poetry page. As you can see it also features images of Belfast Northern Ireland and links to further info on issues there. I have done this because I think that we should never forget the victims of conflict. The current wars happening world wide are reminders that conflict resolves nothing and creates more suffering on those caught up in them.
I wrote this poem under the pen name of
P McMahon it sums up what life was like for children in Belfast during those dark days.

A night in Belfast

I sat cowering in a corner,

a frightened boy in my own home,

the cause of my fear was all around me,

yet it wasn't the darkness of the room,

for I was accustomed to that,

nor was I alone in my fear.

Suddenly I heard the scream of the dying,

blasted into oblivion by the staccato of spewing lead, nothing new I had heard it before,

over and over again, “stay down”, my father shouted.

They've been saying that for seven hundred years I thought.

Bang! Bang! Bang! went the steady death beat, we had got used to it, yet we feared,

like a virus it clung in the air, above the din I heard the sound of an ambulance siren,

the Royal Victoria Hospital was in for another busy night. (P. McMahon)

A night in Belfast reflects on a fierce gun battle fought on the streets of Ardoyne Belfast between the British Army and the Irish Republican Army that left many dead and injured on both sides. Our house was caught in the middle and bullets came through the windows from both sides.

Photo taken by Minus Toke at the Grand Pavilion Porthcawl

Kathleen's Choice

When the troubles kicked off in Belfast in the 1960s Jimmy Mc Stephan met a girl called Kathleen. They lived in West Belfast and frequented the clubs there. They listened and danced to the songs of Dickie Valentine and Johnny Ray. Jimmy decided to join the Irish Republican Army or the "boys" as they were known. Kathleen gave him a choice it was to be her or them. He opted to fight for his country and gave up the only true love he ever had. He survived the troubles and passed away from old age in 2004. I wrote the song Kathleen's Choice following his death to capture a snap-shot of life back then. Click here to listen.

British soldiers in West Belfast in the 1970s

Belfast had many characters who were great ambassadors for the city. John Joseph Monaghan better known as Rinty Monaghan was the world flyweight boxing champion in the 1940s. He retired through illness undefeated in the 1950s and took up singing as a career. One of the first Irish boxers to sing in the ring he died in the 1980s. I remember him coming into the Milky Way cafe on Belfast's Royal Avenue for an Ulster fry to the shouts of "com on Rinty give us a song" to hear the song I wrote about him and see footage of his fight with Jackie Patterson at the Kings Hall Belfast in the 1940s click on the title Rinty Monaghan

Fly weight Champion Boxer
Rinty Monaghan