Posts in category Irish Heritage
The Flowing Dargle
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The Unusual Suspects – Rhymers ...
Tullamore Rhymers Club audition for cast of the new Hangover film
It was always going to be an unlikely headline line up, and yet it worked so well, as the Rubberbandits rocked the Garden in the Wake of the Tullamore Rhymers Club at the Festival of the Fires in Uisneach in 2013.
Rushing from our set to the garden of the Uisneach Inn, I manag [...]
Let Blaze the Flames of Uisneach
Fire at Uisneach 2012
Flames bright burned seven years
On the top of Uisneach Hill
Bealtaine declared for the world
The call it echo’s here still
Though flames burned to embers
Ash now its fuel that flamed strong
Wisps of is smoke like spirits
Linger here, where they belong.
Miracle of fire celebrated
Of life, of heat, growth anew
Of ho [...]
Real Heros Never Boast, Being Dead
Silent they lie, neath clay, the slain…
Speak not of deeds done, but remain
In history, names unknown,
Of battles fought, for land, king, throne,
But great are they the stories talked
By those folk who from the field walked
Do they immortality seek?
Heros, dead, of their deeds don’t speak.
Are Both One Blood?
Berber Sands in the Pre Sahara
A tour guide told us of a legend among the Arabs that the Berber people at one time and the Celts were one folk.
I assumed it a tale for the foreignors, but on talking to a taxi driver who mentioned an event 2900 years ago, I decided to research it better.
Breogán; statue in A Coruña
The Celtic legend of [...]
King Congal’s Grief
The Druids Daughter and the King
King Congal was an ancient semi-legendry king of Irelands north Lenster area known at the time as Taffia, afterwards Annally and todaystraddles the modern counties of Longford and Westmeath.
This poem tells of the loss of his wife, how he found a new wife, and its eerie parralless with King Edward of England [...]
Wren Sleeps Soundly This Christmas
Wren no longer hunted, nor Church attended
Clergy speak to deaf ears, eyes have seen
What all thought could never be, sinners
Men of cloth greatest of all have been.
We think we are holy less today
Than we were as a people pious before
But now we pray from faith and belief
Not from fear and posture anymore.
God being good still hears and hee [...]
Christ Was A Slovakian (Deceased)
On the day Ireland beat Slovakia 1-0 at soccer, Irish Mail on Sunday journalist Paul Palmer found that his next door neighbour, a Slovak national he never met, was murdered in his flat.
He goes on to lament Ireland has changed, how foreigners don’t integrate and live like the Irish, not taking into account that this green and pleasant land of [...]
Kingship of Nuada
This non rhyming poem tells of the loss of the arm of Nuada, also the kingship, the consequences and then the restoration before the death of Nuada at the second battle of Moytura.
Lusmagh, Plain of the herbs that heal
Allowed work the arm of Nuada
Who back from Breas the Kingship took
Beating Fir Bolg at Moytura.
Land of sheep, Ireland was [...]
Cata – Monster of the River Sha...
Read the words >>>
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Crying Spirit of the Night
The crying in the bight grew faint
As to listen for it I slow,
And there looks to be nothing now
Where there was a woman a while ago.
But then upon again walking
Beneath awindow stands
Crying, as she brushes her hair,
With a comb in age gnarled hands…
And I, though I have heard her
And before my eyes her vision did appear
Of the Banshee [...]
Celts Fear Not the Worlds End
Some folk fear the end of times
Us Celts – of it we do not fear
Symbols are what we say they are
As we desire them, they appear.
Life: from one plane to another
From spirit, to soul, then to death
We join the world on ancestors
To be joined by those unborn yet.
The knot, infinity is called
By those who its meaning don’t know
Time [...]
The Death of Betsy Gray
Betsy Gray, an Ulster Scot – Irish Patriot. Presbyterian peasant girl, killed for her part in the 1798 United Irishmen rebellion.
Oh, Erin mourns a daughter
Who was tragically cut away
A Scot of Ulster who for Ireland
Was killed one fateful day
Her hand cut off by a traitor
Who tried to apprehend her
She used upon the English
Their own [...]
Aideens Grave
“Aideens Grave” – Dolmen at Howth
Raised by hands, set there in perfection
The dead honoured, stones perfect placed
Ash and bones, placed in affection
Of the dead, never to be displaced…
But time, maybe mankind, which we know not
Twisting, the capstone came crashing down!
Strong stone construction, as if did rot
From w [...]
Let Them Lie
Remains of a barrow at Braemor, site of a car park for the new Chinese Port at Drogheda
Disturb not the bones of the dead!
They sleep now, here, for all time to lie…
It’s all they ask of those who are left -
Basic respect! It’s the reason why
Only wind should scatter the ashes…
Should they to gales become exposed… [...]
But Tales for Children Now
But tales for children now
And even then not often told
For children have no interest
In fairy tales told by the old
In a world full of Playstations
And other types of video game
Playing is not what it was
And our values are not the same.
Stupid stories that are called today
We forget times age old rule
Every story contains a moral
Understood [...]
Learned Mac Nessa
In olden times the learned men
Who knew the craft of paper and pen
Learned through a dialect that then
Only by them was understood
Conor Mac Nessa to that said no
A better way to learn he’d show
And abandon the ways of long ago
So that men of all blood
Could learn medicine and the arts
And every skill and all parts
As long as they had l [...]
The Big Wind
The weather Gods seemed angry
As they fought over the snow
Winter said it all should stay
And Spring said it all should go
The Epiphany it fell on
The day of womens rest
As if their anger of centuries
Was loosened and my Venus herself blessed
In time from the west it came
And swept through all the land
Cabins leveled, to the very ground
Even [...]
Dreams of De Valera
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Restless Sídhe of Keeraun Hill
Keeraun Hill, near Banagher in Co. Offaly, IrelandPhoto: Tomás Ó Cárthaigh (c) 2012
They sleep not in peace and quiet
As they did in days of old
Forgotten by us modern folk
Who tell tales of pots of gold
To gullible Americans
Who believe stories that they are told
By folk who count greedily the cash
From the souvenirs they have sold.
Folk who [...]
Boats of Birr
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The Flag
Verse to a Praying Druid
Druids prayer – to a god you know
And have prayed to through the years
That you say has never let you down
And made you face your fears.
I hear your chants in the morning sun
As the jackdaw takes to the sky
From the branch of the sacred yew
To among his kindred fly.
An Ollamh recites his verse
In mumbled utterings to himself known
A un [...]
If Poets Had Consequence
In bardic Ireland, a satire poem so destroyed a kings reputation he would have to give up his crown. The only other time he would have to do that was if bodily maimed, such as losing a limb. While more savage days, prehaps they were more honest times…
If poets had consequence in these modern times
All corruption would not be
But they do [...]
I Heard Not
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Sleeping Neath a Nipple
From a trip up the Paps in Kerry, called after the Goddess Anú
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The Causeway of Giants
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Clonmacnois – The Ancient City
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Dark Brown Turf
By hand it was cut, the dark brown turf
Donkey and ass dew it by cart home
Hands hard from work tossed it to the fire
Neath hair that rare e’re saw a comb
Then by machine it was cut, dark turf
Tractor now drew it home to the shed
Soft hands, from little work, into the range
Tossed it, neath styled combed hair now instead.
Now, by decree [...]
