In recent years, much of Michael O’Leary’s time has been devoted to non-fiction research. Four titles have been published by Michael:
1. Paekakariki: A Short History (2014)
2. Paekakariki Station Museum (2017)
(no image available)
3. Kapiti Transport History (2017)
4. The Streets of Paekakariki (2018)
Michael O’Leary’s latest book, The Streets of Paekakariki, was launched this year to a warm reception at St Peter’s Hall, Paekakariki, on 16 September 2018. This is the Introduction to it.
INTRODUCTION
Block 9 on the map is shown to belong to Betty Nicol (Kahe Te Rau-o-Te-Rangi) wife of Scotch Jock
The above map/diagram, dated 1874, shows Paekakariki and environs before any proper streets or roads were developed in the township, although it does show the basic developmental trends that Paekakariki would follow as it became the village we know today. The only road as such at the time was the Paekakariki Hill Road (seen in the bottom left-hand corner of the map), which had been built mainly to provide access for wagons and artillery to pacify the Wellington region after the Hutt Valley War of 1845-6.
British Army engineers supervised by Capt. Andrew Hamilton Russell, Superintendent of Military Roads, mapped the route. Ironically the work was carried out with Māori road-building gangs who completed the road in November 1849, linking Wellington and Porirua with the Beach Highway to Whanganui. Between the hill road and the beach was a small thoroughfare which would become, appropriately, Beach Road. The name of the settlement changed from Paripari to Paikakariki, originally spelled with Pai.
By 1886, when the railway arrived, Paekakariki had a Posting House for coaches where horses changed after the arduous trip over the Hill Road. The settlement had a hotel, baker, grocer, policeman, Constable Roche, and a ‘lock-up’. The hotel was run at this time by Mrs Tilley. The three main Pakeha families were the Smiths, Lynches and Mackays. Below is the official notification of the new spelling of Paekakariki in 1907.
An early postcard of Paekakariki – Beach Road – c1900s
Today’s main road to the beach, Beach Road, runs in front of the buildings towards the sand dunes at the bottom left. Paekakariki’s first Post Office was sited approximately where the last of the row of Army-type sheds stands. The railway station and other premises of the Wellington-Manawatu Railway Company are sited in a line to the left. The large building is the Paekakariki Hotel with the publican at that time being Charles Slight.
Paekakariki was developed in several sections. At first the township was to be located around the area where the surf club is. This town was going to be called Wainui. The area was probably chosen as there was already an existing Māori pa there and because of the ready supply of fresh water from the Wainui stream. However, once the hotel was built at the foot of the Paekakariki Hill Road this then became the logical place for a town to be constructed around.
Report from the Colonial Secretary dated January 1850 regarding the Native Population at Wainui.
The first auction sale of land in Paekakariki was in December 1905 and consisted of 39 sections mainly along Ames Street with a few in Beach Road. By 1907 another 70 odd sections ( belonging to the Paekakariki Land Syndicate ) were sold and included blocks in Wellington Road, The Parade, Roberston and Tilley Roads. May 1907 saw another block for sale; this included 66 sections which were located on The Parade, Wellington, Cecil and Tilley Roads.
By 1908 Paekakariki extended as far as Ocean Road, thus connecting Wellington Road and The Parade. The Wellington Manawatu Railway Company owned land adjacent to Tilley road and they constructed many staff houses in this area. The sections were popular with Manawatu farmers for vacation homes.
Paekakariki Railway Precinct showing the railway houses before Tilley Road was built
Around 1910-1920 The Parade was more or less as can be found today, Pingau Street and The Recreation Reserve (Campbell Park) were also built during this time. In 1923 the subdivision named ‘Awatea’ was advertised for sale. This included Tangahoe, Aperahama, Henare and Mira Street. Mira Street, which later became the northern end of Wellington Road, was then extended southwards and connected up with Pingau.
The ‘Awatea’ subdivision was probably the area that was earmarked for the original township of Wainui. The last house in Tilley road at this time was constructed on the hill above the school and is now part of a cul-de-sac known as Mira Grove. During the war the land to the East was confiscated by the Government and turned into the Paekakariki Military Base for the Americans. This land also included the Paekakariki Golf Club which occupied the area around what is now known as Queen Elizabeth Park.
1927 saw plans drawn up for ‘Extension No. 9 to the Town of Paekakariki’ this block was at the south end of Ames Street and included another 27 sections adjoining those already sold, with an access way being left for people to reach the beach, the sections being advertised as “suitable for permanent Residences, Week-end Homes or Camps, as there is electric light and a magnificent water supply”.
1927 Paekakariki Subdivision Plan
After the construction of the Paekakariki School in its current position in 1945, Wellington Road was extended to Mira Street and the complete road became Wellington Road. Long time Paekakariki resident, Michael Smullen, used to tell the story that he went to work in the morning living on Mira Street and came home in the afternoon and his house was on Wellington Road.
In 1956 there was a scattering of houses along the East side of the Wellington Road extension, Mirirona Grove had been constructed and houses were beginning to appear there. The late 1950s saw the construction of Te Miti, Horomona, Haumia, Clarkes, Mutu and the Tilley Road extension. Of the 150 new sections in this block, around 30 were built as Railway Houses. At this time Mira Grove was named to replace the lost Mira Street. Originally Haumia was spelt incorrectly and local Iwi had to battle for many years to get the name spelt correctly, Finally, in the 1980’s the authorities agreed and the spelling was corrected. The last group of housing came with the construction of Tarawa, Smith and Porter. These were modern subdivisions with underground services used for the first time in Paekakariki.
Several of the original hapū and whānau of the Paekakariki area are depicted in many of the street names and in the Awatea block at the north end of the town several of the names are only Māori names. There are also interesting cross references. There is Smith Street, named after a local early Pakeha settler family which is not far from Te Miti Street, Te Miti being a Māori transliteration of the name Smith. The street names are presented alphabetically rather than geographically except when the names are so bound up with each other it seemed a folly to separate them. The fact that three of the earliest buildings constructed in Paekakariki were churches to be followed by a 4th at a later stage shows the influence religion had over the people at the time. Not only that a couple of them were built on what could be considered the best sections in the village.
Also there were several different orders that had holiday homes for members of their clergy to recuperate and rest. Now of course its different times and two of the churches have been turned into private residences and some of the holiday homes have been sold off. An interesting point is that no land was set aside for a cemetery apart from iwi who have their urupa in Queen Elizabeth Park.
Some of the Maori names proved difficult for the Councils of the time to spell. Even now they seem to have difficulty naming some roads correctly.
There are also a few mystery names, the main one being Paneta Street which appears to have no reference under that particular spelling. Also, Cecil Road which is probably named after a son of the land owner, Robertson, rather than the local joke that it was a play on the name of the African explorer, Cecil Rhodes. This is also odd as no houses appear to have an address of Cecil Road. Whatever the origin and story behind the street names of Paekakariki, I hope you enjoy this little stroll down each highway and byway.
Michael O’Leary
Michael O’Leary draws The Kinks
November 11, 2018
Michael O’Leary recently contributed his drawing of The Kinks to a special anthology of poems celebrating the Winter Readings held at Paekakariki on Sunday, September 20th.
The annual event formed a tribute to The Kinks, a continuation of a poetry reading series which began in 2004. Previous drawings by Michael O’Leary included Jim Morrison, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, U2, Oasis, Bee Gees and the Beach Boys.
The Kinks by Michael O’Leary, 2018
Earl of Seacliff Poetry Prize 2018 awarded
November 11, 2018
The Kink Poetroversy (ESAW, 2018)
At this year’s Winter Readings in Paekakariki, “The Kink Poetroversy”, Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop published an anthology of the readers (with photography by John Girdlestone), and awarded its annual poetry prize to Bill Dacker (Otago), a surprise award.
The Kink Poetroversy held (belatedly) at St Peter’s Hall on 23 September 2018 was a tribute to the rock group The Kinks and an event continuing the return of a popular poetry reading series in the Wellington region presented by the Poetry Archive Trust, HeadworX Publishers and ESAW 2003-2008, 2016 and 2017.
This year’s attendance maintained its support from the previous years, and the participants were Rob Hack (MC), Wyeth Chalmers, Damian Ruth, Mary Maringikura Campbell, HeadworX editor Mark Pirie, Bill Dacker, PANZA co-founder Dr Niel Wright, and ESAW publisher Michael O’Leary.
Wyeth Chalmers gave a lively performance in opening the lunch-time session, followed by Mary Maringikura Campbell reading from her collection Maringi (2015) and Damian Ruth reading from On Edge (HeadworX, 2017).
Mark Pirie read a mixture of Beat-style performance poems and some family poems from his recently completed biography, Tom Lawn: Mystery Forward (ESAW, 2018). Bill Dacker and Michael O’Leary followed with readings of old and new works. Michael read from his Collected Poems (HeadworX, 2017). Dacker, who seldom publishes his poetry, gave a stirring reading, and was a worthy recipient of this year’s Earl of Seacliff Poetry Prize.
Two poets featured in the event anthology: Joy MacKenzie and Iain Sharp, of Nelson, regrettably had to cancel attending the event. Dr Niel Wright filled in giving a reading from his Pop Artist’s Garland: Selected Poems (HeadworX).
Poem by Bill Dacker
MONUMENTAL
It was such and such a day marking a great event
in the destiny of a people and I thought, what about
the others? I was at the monument to a hero. I thought
of the others.
Those who wound their lives about a ‘truth’ so tight
that they were consumed as was their ‘truth’ in the end.
Those who rose from the ashes of cowardice but only
their cowardice was seen.
Those who burned bright then fell but who picked
themselves up not seen.
Those whose glory was never seen because it existed
in moments of the ordinary – in will, in thought
that turned events back into the ordinary, saving
the ordinary from cruelty, from pain, from loss.
Those unknown creating the streams of events the known
ride to the time and place where, right footed, they
lifted to their glory, which, more often than not, becomes
the wrong foot that will take the unknown into the ordinary
to create the extraordinary.
(Winner of the Earl of Seacliff Poetry Prize, 2018)
[The Earl of Seacliff Poetry Prize began in 2007, when the Earl, Michael O’Leary, awarded a prize to an emerging artist’s poem on the Poetrywall at that year’s Winter Readings taking place at the City Gallery. Evelyn Conlon, a young poet, won the prize.
Further awards were given to collections published by the Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop: Will Leadbeater 2008, Jill Chan 2009, Robin Fry 2010 and Barry Southam in 2011.
When ESAW went into hiatus, apart from a few publications in recent years, the prize also went into hiatus.
2016 saw the reinstatement of the award at Winter Readings: Poetry Gees dedicated to the Bee Gees, with the Otago-based writer Jeanne Bernhardt being awarded the prize. in 2017, Mary Maringikura Campbell won the award at Winter Readings: Versin Safari.]
ESAW Poetry Prize 2017 awarded
August 27, 2017
Versin’ Safari (ESAW, 2017)
At this year’s Winter Readings in Paekakariki, “Versin’ Safari”, Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop published an anthology of the six readers (with photography by John Girdlestone), and awarded its annual poetry prize to Mary Maringikura Campbell, a surprise award.
Versin’ Safari held at St Peter’s Hall on 6 August 2017 was a tribute to the pop group The Beach Boys and an event continuing the return of a popular poetry reading series in the Wellington region organised by HeadworX Publishers and ESAW 2003-2008 and 2016.
This year’s attendance was up on the previous year and the participants were Nelson Wattie (also MC), Marilyn Duckworth (reading from The Chiming Blue: New and Selected Poems (VUP, 2017)), Paekakariki poets Mercedes Webb-Pullman and Damian Ruth, HeadworX editor Mark Pirie (reading his own and several poems by MaryJane Thomson from a recent HeadworX release, Songs of the City), and ESAW publisher Michael O’Leary reading from his newly released Collected Poems 1981-2016 (HeadworX).
Musician Francis Mills, a special guest, performed songs as a musical break between the poets.
Writer David McGill, one of this year’s cover artists along with Francis Mills in the Beach Boys photo shoot, was also acknowledged through Mark Pirie’s reading of limerick about the Beach Boys (a coda to the event).
At the conclusion of the event, Mary Maringikura Campbell received this year’s ESAW Poetry Prize for her collection Maringi.
Mary Maringikura Campbell
FISH
Fish, there is nothing fishy about you
nothing flawed or perverse
only pink and green tides
yellow moons and sleepless nights
Fish, no one compares to you
I could eat you raw
Fish, how can you measure
the depth, the volume of the ocean
My love for you is immeasurable
Fish, I will never hide from you
deep in the belly of the ocean
under the seaweed
it is murky and my vision is impaired
Fish, I am your paua
you are my rock
my moon
my blackest pearl
and I am stuck on
you.
Poem copyright Mary Maringikura Campbell 2016
Maringi (c2016)
[The Earl of Seacliff Poetry Prize began in 2007, when the Earl, Michael O’Leary, awarded a prize to an emerging artist’s poem on the Poetrywall at that year’s Winter Readings taking place at the City Gallery. Evelyn Conlon, a young poet, won the prize.
Further awards were given to collections published by the Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop: Will Leadbeater 2008, Jill Chan 2009, Robin Fry 2010 and Barry Southam in 2011.
When ESAW went into hiatus, apart from a few publications in recent years, the prize also went into hiatus.
Last year saw the reinstatement of the award at Winter Readings 2016: Poetry Gees dedicated to the Bee Gees, with the Otago-based writer Jeanne Bernhardt being awarded the prize.]
Michael O’Leary’s New Zealand cricket novel, Out of It, republished by HeadworX in 2012 [original first edition by Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, 1987], has been reviewed by Benjamin Golby in The Cricket Monthly, the international cricket magazine online. Check out the article at the link below:
http://www.thecricketmonthly.com/story/1086778/fantasy-cricket
Michael O’Leary’s books available at Lulu
April 8, 2017
Michael O’Leary’s books published by HeadworX are now available at Lulu’s leading online bookstore:
Collected Poems 1981-2016
eBook $AUD12.99
Hardback $AUD40.00
paperback $AUD24.95
Out of It: A Novel Cricket Novel
eBook $AUD8.99
Hardback $AUD35.00
paperback $AUD18.95
Main Trunk Lines: Collected Railway Poems
eBook $AUD8.99
Hardback $AUD35.00
paperback $AUD18.95
Toku Tinihanga: Selected Poems 1982-2002
eBook $AUD8.99
Paneta Street
eBook $AUD8.99
Make Love and War
eBook $AUD8.99
Sounds of Sonnets, with Mark Pirie
eBook $AUD8.99
Dylan Cohen tribute concert in Paekakariki
January 22, 2017
Michael O’Leary has organized a tribute concert to the late Leonard Cohen and to Bob Dylan (Nobel Prize for Literature 2016).
Here is the start time and running order for the concert:
COHEN / DYLAN Tribute Concert : St Peters Village Hall
7.45pm Saturday 4th Feb 2017:
First Half: COHEN.
Michael O’Leary
Gilbert Haismann
Meg Prasad
Michael O’Leary
Ebony Lamb
Debbie James
Nada Mills (Elan Mills / Ray Butler / Andy Christianson)
Danilo Blaza
Helen Dorothy (Janet Holboro)
Jason Johnson
5min tribute video.
Second Half: DYLAN.
5min tribute video
Michael O’Leary
Peter Ware
Holly Ewens
Francis Mills (Gary Allen / Ray Butler)
Jason Tamihana
Rob Hack
Shayn Wills (Zephyr Wills)
Jason Johnson (Chris Winter / Nick Brown)
Finale: “Knockin’ On Heavens Door”
ESAW publishes Ride the Tempest by Mark Pirie
January 14, 2017
ESAW published a new title in December 2016: Ride the Tempest by m r pirie [Mark Pirie].
m r pirie was Mark Pirie’s original writing name in the early 1990s, and the book collects three groups of poems from his uncollected notebook poems during the period 1993-1995 at the ages of 18 to 20.
ESAW publishes his book as an archival edition to complete the publication of Pirie’s early poems. Pirie has been one of ESAW’s most prolific authors over the years since his booklet The Blues was published by ESAW in 2001.
Pirie also took the cover photo of a friend bodyboarding at Mahia Peninsula in early 1992.
Copies can be ordered from the publisher: pukapuka@paradise.net.nz
Ride the Tempest by m r pirie [Mark Pirie], Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, Paekakariki, December 2016
Title: Ride the Tempest: Uncollected Early Poems 1993-1995
Author: m r pirie [Mark Pirie]
ISBN 978-1-86942-168-7
Price: $25.00
Extent: 66 pages
Format: 148mmx210mm
Publication: December 2016
Publisher: Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop
Michael O’Leary’s tributes to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen
January 14, 2017
Michael O’Leary recently contributed his poem and the below drawing (Blonde on Blonde) in honour of Bob Dylan, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and an elegy for Leonard Cohen, to Poetry Notes, Spring 2016 (Newsletter of the Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa).
The Bob Dylan poem also appears in Phantom Billsticker’s Cafe Reader, Summer 2016, and the Cohen elegy in Tony Chad’s Valley Micropress, December 2016.
Bob Dylan drawing by Michael O’Leary, 2008
Michael O’Leary
BOB DYLAN, A VISITATION
(10/9/1998, Wellington)
With my ear to the future
And my mind to the past
Sitting twenty rows back
and up high
I could feel the real visions of Johanna
From the ancient times
When the nuns had us sing
The answer is blowing in the wind
the Jews and the Catholics
Have fought pitched battles over my soul
And out on Highway Sixty One
Or along any lonesome railway track
The songs remain like freight cars
to be sung or shunted
Along the weary lines of a human face
Echoes of Mr. Yeats’ hymn
And a thousand singsong others
Expressing in thought, word, music
like your friend, Woody
The all too familiar taste of dust and death
Recalling the desolate row
Of houses in Margaret Street
Now either destroyed or gentrified
must we really move
Into the Ponsonby of the new, shallow mind
Later, you entered the ‘her’
Part of my life also
With a precious angel
now gone, but then
I was the man in the long black coat
From all you need is love minus zero
To being sick of love
Then, on one more night
you took us from Maggie’s farm
To forever young, as a simple reminder
Now there’s even talk of
Cranking up the Oldsmobile
For so long stuck inside, and
up the central plateaux
To Auckland, the Great Arsehole, sacred
Okay, Mister Room Man
Play a song for us
Say a prayer too, as you
wing your own way
Earthbound, heavenwards soaring beyond
For always talking the blues
To your Jews and Gypsies
All those masters of war
old Hitler, Stalin, and yes
The President of the U.S. does sometimes stand naked
Through all the years’ confusions
Of ideas and people and events
To this present listening
so many things have happened
While you just keep on singing to my sister’s alarm
I’m glad to come and see you
To tip my hat to the master’s hand
With my rainy day woman
asleep on my shoulder
Times have changed so much, they’ve remained the same
SO LONG LEONARD COHEN
Beginning life as a middle-class son
Comfortable in your Jewish Catholicism
Tailor-made for the family’s business
You chose the more difficult artist’s path
Through the Montreal poetry scene
You played youth’s favourite games
Slim volumes proffering Flowers for the Führer:
Eichmann’s normal human perversions
More polite than the gutter snipe
Rock and rollers, who said they joined
A band to get laid: young Cohen said
He played music to meet women
In the late 1960s when every belief
Came to an end: when The Beatles’ apple
Turned to pulp without the future fiction
You came along with a song from a room
A muse, in the real sense of ‘to amuse’
Someone who spoke openly about thought
And feeling, perhaps here was a poet
Who wasn’t alive a hundred years ago
Who wasn’t ‘beat’ or rock ‘n roll, exactly
But came so far, with a Spanish guitar,
With a seductive voice and lyric to match –
Existential, if you’ll pardon the expression
So all our Suzanne’s took us all down
To our own lands of rags and feathers;
Remembering well that Chelsea Hotel,
New York and the tragic taste of success
You went into God’s Hamburger Bar in
The city of Angels, wanting nothing but
‘One with Everything’ . . . becoming a Buddhist
Monk to escape the world of pain and love
Old songs and new could not be suppressed
So you returned to the world to bring them,
To sing them to audiences old and new
Hallelujah, Hallelujah: from below and above
Dancing to the end of love, you twirled
Full circle, singing so long Marianne, by e-mail
As she lay dying, remembering Greek Isles
Sunshine and smiles, farewell dreaming
It’s now as dark as you want it, Leonard
But remember, there’s always that crack
Perhaps you really have come to understand
Now, that’s where the light truly gets in . . .
Poems and drawing copyright Michael O’Leary
ESAW Christmas Surprise 2016 released
December 20, 2016
In the spirit of the Beatles who put out a Christmas record for their fans, Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, the Poetry Archive of NZ Aotearoa (PANZA) and HeadworX offer to you, our friends and clients, this small token for your enjoyment.
Poems on David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, surfing, tennis, Christmas, poems in ‘inscriptive text’ by Niel Wright, and a short play by B. E. Turner.
Contributors: Michael O’Leary, B. E. Turner, F. W. Nielsen Wright, and Mark Pirie.
Download and view the free pdf of this book (file size 479KB):
http://markpirie.com/books/esaw-christmas-surprise-2016
ESAW Christmas Surprise 2016 edited by Mark Pirie
