Three poems on flood histories in rural Ireland

This article presents three poems inspired by archival research on historical perceptions of flooding and river engineering in Galway city and its rural hinterland. Relationships between people and water, as recorded in early-20th-century minutes of a vice-regal commission on river drainage in rural Ireland and historical newspaper accounts of flooding, are explored and reimagined. The poems focus particularly on the management of flood risk and geomorphological processes (erosion and sedimentation), ‘arterial drainage,’ and individual emotional responses to traumatic floods and their impacts. Reflecting on these poems, I suggest that part of poetry’s contribution to the discipline is to provide a new and exciting way of engaging with the archive