I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.
Allen Ginsberg (Howl, 1956)
An incredible coffee morning took place yesterday at our neighbour’s house, for both Pádraig and the Hospice Africa Uganda Miriam Fund, set up to support the work of Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr Anne Merriman, who passed away in May 2025 in Uganda at the age 90. A relative of our neighbours, Anne had setup a hospice in Kampala and trained students from 37 African countries in palliative care. On her 90th birthday, just one week prior to her passing, she had received tributes from President Michael D Higgins and Taoiseach Micheál Martin.
There are times when you feel small and humble in the face of love, generosity, compassion, resilience, and pure kindness. Today was one of these days.
It was a badly-needed contrast and lift, inspirational, motivating, and inspiring, in the face of days that seem so desperate and hopeless.
It would be easy to say “what can a coffee-morning change”? – I can tell you: the tea, the coffee, the absolutely magnificent cakes, and, above all, the company and support of people who are there when you most need them, is uplifting beyond comparison.
A humongous THANK YOU to our neighbours for organising a fantastic and energising morning for us all, for those supporting people who have a right to live their lives although they have been written off by the health system. Ireland and Africa are world’s apart. But they are connected through the humanity of those who care.
I have been thinking about some lines attributed to Allen Ginsberg.
Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don’t care who’s listening.
Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.
Do I (lately) think too much about who is listening?
Is it time to make the private world public?
Is it time to Howl?
Hospi-Tales 
Profound words of Allen Ginsberg. Glad to hear of that coffee morning too, Rheinard. Just read your lovely piece on Manchan too. Great to know he and Padraig knew each other. What a unique and wonderful person he was. He inspired the spirit of all who knew him and those, like me, who knew of him and loved his work and all that he was. I’m convinced that his light will continue to shine brightly. Warm wishes to you and Padraig.
Raphael 😊
Manchán shines like a bright light allowing us to see that there is so much more than the obvious.
That it doesn’t just have to be at that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what we really think. But that we can make at least parts of our private world public, and move thousands, open their eyes, open their minds.
He and Ginsberg had so much in common. Although they lived decades apart and in very different circumstances, they were free spirits whose legacy will stay with us.
Thank you for your very kind words, Raphael.