1. What words and colours do you associate with the suburbs? Write a list. 2. What words and colours do you associate with the West of Ireland? Write a list.
3. Are there many similarities, in your opinion, between these two places? Where would you prefer to live?
COMPREHENDING AND RESPONDING 1. What do you think the ‘season between seasons’ might be? Explain your answer.
2. In stanza one, how do you think the poet is feeling about the suburbs she is leaving behind? Give reasons for your answer.
3. What image do you form in your mind having read stanza two? Describe this image with as much detail as possible.
4. in support of your answer.
5. Traditionally, what did Irish people believe might happen if you brought hawthorn blossoms inside the house?
6. Boland compares the blossoming hawthorn tree to water. Do you think this is an effective comparison? Give reasons for your answer.
7. This poem is comprised of both short, staccato sentences, and long enjambed lines. What effect does this form have on the poem, in your opinion? Support your answer with reference to the poem.
8. What do you think the poet means when she says that the hawthorn blossom is ‘the only language spoken in those parts’? Explain your answer with reference to the poem.
9. your answer.
CREATING
1. You wish to enter an international photographic competition where you have to email you have chosen these particular images, and in what ways they work together to reveal a comprehensive view of Ireland at this particular moment in history.
2. Write a blog post in which you explore superstitions and whether you have any belief in some or all of them.
3. You are the owner of a new ‘glamping’ business in a remote part of the West of Ireland. Write the text of the advertisement you intend to post on different social