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The Fountain

The last of the new pieces written for this year's "Wonderful Wander", but this one was unused due to time constraints and a slight change of route. 
It was written about the Thomas Thompson Memorial Fountain on a traffic island at the junction of Bedford Street and Ormeau Avenue. It was erected in 1885 by Eliza, daughter of Dr. Thomas Thompson, in memory of her father who was one of Belfast’s pioneers in the fight against cholera, advocating for clean water supplies in the face of sceptics who believed that the disease was caused by an atmospheric "miasma". 

It was listed in 1970 but has long ceased to function as an operational fountain. The local Linen Quarter Business Improvement District have, over recent years, cleaned up the fountain and aspire to fully restore it, but even in the decade or so that I've been aware of its history the inscruptions on the red sandstone structure have become more indistinct. Hence the following poem...

A memorial to someone sadly forgotten.
Incised words almost worn away.
The invitation to drink of a deeper spring
Erased.

A fountain disconnected
From its source,
The life-giving, living water
Cut off.

Selah


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