From bank holidays to saints’ days and many other annual celebrations on the Irish calendar year, they are at times uplifting, at times nostalgic, always reflective of real life. With poems such as Lúnasa, I Thought Saw St. Brigit Today, My Mother Loved Me in Red, The Púca, Visiting My Father at Christmas and All Souls’ Day, The Long Weekend leaves no question that Rita Ann Higgins is the people’s poet.