Rirà
Troyen Alley
Rirà
2024
Where’s all those Troyenalley
Along the banks of Bucharest
Where’s all those Troyenalley
Laid down, laid bare to rest
Where’s all those soldiers now
Along the banks of Bucharest
Where’s all those soldiers now
Laid down, laid bare to rest
O’ Hail to the land
From my grandfather’s song
Where freedom was won
And our justice was prevailed
Troyen Alley
I recently bought a house with my beautiful girlfriend in the arsehole of nowhere, in a small village that doesn’t sound French at all. Yzengremer it’s called. But anyway, we probably all know that moving home or buying a new home can be a bit stressful and of course exciting at the same time. So, in the beginning there are boxes everywhere and after some months you finally get around to getting some order in the house. Well, there was one morning I was going through one of the boxes and I came across some pictures and letters. They were pictures of my folks when they were younger and pictures of their wedding day. They looked so lovely.Then I came across this letter, well; I thought it was letter at first but in fact it was a song written by my grandfather called ‘O’ Hail to the land’. The song spoke of Irish freedom and independence. I was completely surprised; I couldn’t believe that my grandfather was a writer. When I spoke to my mum sometime after this, she explained to me that my grandfather wrote lots of articles that were published. He was also a great poet.
So, I am sitting there reading this song trying to think of what it would have been like back in his day. There was a lot of war at that time, and I can only imagine that my grandfather was writing about Irish independence as I said, because he talks about this in his lyrics.
But Troyen Alley is actually a Romanian term for snow ditches, you know like the big heaps of snow on the side of the road that the snow diggers push there. It doesn’t have anything to do with Irish Independence.
So, what the feck am I talking about then. Well, I started to think about how snow diggers just plough through what’s in front of them to get from A to B. They push everything to the side to make a clear passage through. I took this image as a kinda metaphor for war, in the same way that a ‘cause’ or a ‘dictatorship’ can do just the same thing. Pushes everything to the side not caring about what’s left behind. The Snow ditches eventually melt away just like all the soldiers. It’s not a very good comparison but it is how I see it. Sometimes people can just plough through everything not seeing what’s on the left or right of them, not caring about what can be lost and then forgotten. What a pity but that’s life, ‘in’t it.
