Michael Walsh

Michael Walsh the Liverpool born poet and writer traces his Liverpool roots back to 1865. This was the year his Irish great-grandmother arrived in the Second City of Empire. Michael's paternal family background is Moville, Donegal, his maternal Wexford and Tipperary. Both parents were born at the turn of what was to become the most tumultuous century in human history. Both were passionately immersed in the political upheavals of the period. Michael's father, Patrick, had fought in four conflicts before reaching his fortieth birthday. As a 16-year old guerrilla, a reward was placed on his head by England's notorious Black and Tans. He fought in the Irish War of Independence, Spanish Civil War, and World War Two. On leaving school at 15 years of age, Michael spent ten weeks at the Merchant Navy School for Sailors in Sharpness. During his years at sea he was to visit over 60 countries. Michael has since provided articles and columns for numerous magazines and international news media. In 2011 he was awarded 'Writer of the Year' by the publishers of Euro Weekly News, Europe's highest circulation newspaper of its kind. He has authored, edited and ghosted over 60 book titles. As a seaman, Michael was much more than an occasional visitor to the Dark Continent. He spent a period of time in apartheid South Africa, French West Africa and Portuguese occupied Mozambique. The North African and Middle East ports were also well known to him. It was, however, the West Coast of Africa to which Michael became attached. At home in West Africa's accessible interior he empathised well with the native peoples of the many nations that draw sustenance from coastal Africa. Michael was perhaps one of the last to experience Africa as the novelist James Conrad would remember it. Following a maritime mishap the author spent a considerable time in the interior of the Belgian Congo. This was a period of internal conflict the brutality of which has few to equal it.