by Matt Duggan
Gerry Duggan 2009
THE WELCOME
You are welcome, dear friend, as the light in the morning;
As the green on the hillside when winter is past,
As the bloom of the snowdrops, the bleak earth adorning;
As home to the weary, who can rest there at last.
The mountains shall loom on the skyline to meet you;
The glens and their rivers shall bid you to stay;
The haze from the boglands envelop and greet you;
And the song of the birds shall be with you all day.
Where serenity lurks and the wee roads are bending,
Where the homesteads are set in the folds of the land,
And the incense of peace, from the landscape ascending,
The welcome is silent, but you’ll understand.
When the earth weds the sky, at the close of the day;
When the gloaming but lives, in the Zenith above,
And the sadness of joy brings a wistful dismay;
‘Tis a welcome, dear friend, from the country you love.
THE MOUNTAIN FACE
Beneath the heather on the brae, the ridge tracks may be seen.
They tell a tale of grimmer days, of hardships that have been.
Of weary men, with toil-racked bones, of a proud but vanquished race,
Who dug through heather and through stones, on many a mountain face.
Beside their men the women toiled, in field and bog and byre,
And wove and spun and baked and boiled, by the friendly open fire.
Their children, midst the heath and sedge, grew up with natural grace,
And went to school behind a hedge, on many a mountain face.
In sheltered spot and hollowed glen, they built their cabins low,
Protected from marauding men, and winter’s icy blow.
And faithful to their land they clung, in slavery’s cold embrace,
And lived, unhonoured and unsung, on many a mountain face.
In the ’tato ridge and corn plot, their daily food they grew,
And servile drudgery was their lot, oppression seemed their due.
But though penal clauses came and went, they still maintained their place,
Each cross was borne as heaven sent, on many a mountain face.
With gentle cow and humble ass, the sickle and the spade,
They turned the heather into grass, the stones their ditches made,
And high across each towering peak, like emeralds strung in space,
Green meadows of their efforts speak on many a mountain face.
Though the heather may its own regain, the cabins disappear,
Their sacrifice was not in vain, the race they saved is here,
And in our history’s lore and lay, they hold an honoured place,
And proud they be, who can say like me, I belong to a mountain face.
THE MOUNTAINS
I was coming through Leginn one autumn morning,
The tang of frost proclaiming winter nigh,
When the sun burst over Grattan without warning,
And with radiant light transfigured land and sky.
To Gortmullen’s tops the fiery beams went dancing;
On Knockateggal’s slopes their magic lay;
Gortahurk and Toneymore they left entrancing,
And on Aughoule and Doon began to play.
Then the slumbering mountains cast away their sadness,
And awoke to greet the warm embracing rays;
Every rock and crag reflected ruby gladness,
Flaming heather garnished bluffs and braes.
Every house across the mountain blushed with pleasure;
Every curling smoke assumed an auburn hue;
Every window pane projected opal treasure,
Every little lane became an avenue.
In the mornings those same mountains wait to greet me,
As through the oaks to Cloghan Cross I ride,
Where Toneynealth and Mullinaherb will meet me,
With Barr and Toneyvarnogue side by side,
With the changing, circling seasons ever blending,
Ever beautiful in weather’s fickle light,
Transmitting joyful peace that’s never-ending,
Their living presence makes life’s burdens bright.
Men have tried to tell a mountain’s story,
God’s monuments to God they ever stand.
Can fleeting life describe immortal glory?
Can mortal the immortal understand?
CARN ROCK
The rain has passed, Benmore looks clean,
Cuilcagh displays its cairn,
Knockninny slumbers in the sun,
Binn looks stark and stern;
With many greens arrayed,
Through sun and shower, by night and day,
Benign and undismayed.
In stagnant winter’s icy blast,
Or spring’s exultant breath,
In torpid summer’s languid dreams
Or Autumn’s golden death,
As through the seasons and the years,
Around my little sphere,
I like to think within God’s plans
We’re all achieving here.
While Carn looks over Corragole,
To Lough Erne’s whispering wave,
And the yearning soul is filled with peace,
Whate’er the seasons gave.
FERMANAGH
Fermanagh of the rippling rill and river wide and deep,
Fermanagh of the soft green hill and mountain stark and steep,
Fermanagh sees Lough Erne recline on many an island shore,
Fermanagh of the scene divine, my love for evermore.
From the heath-clad glen where the mountain ash with crimson berries glow,
Her amber streams with joyous splash down to Lough Erne flow;
Through fern-lined vale and hillside farm, where nature’s beauties vie,
Fermanagh of the rustic charm, I’ll love you till I die.
Lough Erne for many a silver mile adorns Fermanagh’s plain,
Reflecting every scenic isle from Belleek to Aghalane;
Of tonsured monk and valiant knight her island ruins tell;
Fermanagh of the waters bright, I’m always ‘neath your spell.
Her little roads through hill and ridge and song-filled hedgerows glide,
O’er trout filled streams, by humpbacked bridge, through quiet countryside,
With many a thatched whitewashed abode on a golden whinny hill,
Fermanagh of the little road, in dreams I see you still.
When the gossamer gown of the gentle haze enhances rock and strand,
And Fermanagh rests in a tranquil daze, like a scene from fairyland,
And hill and lough and sky unite as evening’s curtains fall,
Fermanagh in the soft grey light, I love you best of all.
Fermanagh, may you long remain a quiet holy place,
And may your children long retain their calm unhurried pace;
May all who flee from noise and strife find peace upon your shore;
Fermanagh of the placid life, the homeland I adore.
THE ISLANDS OF LOUGH ERNE
Tradition says that in days of yore, when all the world was free,
Lough Gowna’s fairy waters burst and surged down to the sea.
They enveloped all of a fertile plain, every bush and flower and fern,
And only the hilltops remain today, as the islands of Lough Erne.
Then the people who wrought in stone and bronze, sailed in from the salted foam,
And encircled by the enchanted wave, they made this land their home.
And to the sunnier lands they’d left, they never did return;
But plied their arts and built their raths on the islands of Lough Erne.
To this peaceful place, in Christian days, came the monks to teach and pray,
And they built their
cloistered abbeys and cells along many a sheltered bay.
Then from many lands there came pilgrim bands, to meditate and learn.
And over the world they spread the fame of the islands of Lough Erne.
Their wealth, bestowed, enticed the Dane, who crept in with muffled oar,
And filled the night with incendiary light and the battle’s dull uproar.
To preserve the chalice and the jewelled cross from the raiding Viking stern,
Round towers were built, as sanctuaries, on the islands of Lough Erne.
When the chieftains went down on Kinsale’s red field, and fled from Lough Swilly’s strand,
And the faithful clansmen were forced to yield, while the victors took their land,
Then a red-coated army usurped the place of the gallowglass and kern,
And the planters built their castles strong, on the islands of Lough Erne.
To the mist-laden bogs and the heather clad hills a defenceless people crept,
And centuries of penal and coercive laws across their bowed heads swept,
But their faith and traditions lived through the long night ‘til dawn’s welcome return,
Though the long grass grew through their altar stones on the islands of Lough Erne.
Now there’s only the moan in the whispering breeze that embraces a reed-lined shore;
Or the broken sob of the weeping wave, to reflect the days of yore.
The druid and the abbot have passed on their way, with the grenadier and kern,
And castles and cabins are in decay on the islands of Lough Erne.
THE LAND LOUGHS OF TEEMORE
Mid the hustling strife of city life, an exile I have been,
Far from my native mountain slopes, and the glens that run between,
In dust and grime I have spent my time, far from my father’s door,
Where I could see, over Gortaree, the land loughs of Teemore.
In the woodland shades, in the bogland glades, and between green hills they lie,
Reflecting verging bush and reed, and an ever-changing sky.
There lough birds nest, and sea birds rest, ’til winter storms blow o’er,
When cuckoos sing to welcome spring, ’round the land loughs of Teemore.
Through winter’s gloom, through summer’s bloom, and the golden harvest days,
In pensive peace they slumber ’mid the fens and sheltering braes,
Exuding calm, a healing balm when hearts are strained and sore,
For the air is blest with grace and rest, ’round the land loughs of Teemore.
Drumderg, Drumbroory, Corrahoash, Drumkillen, Derrycree,
Abacon, Killymacken, all magnetic names to me;
The snug abodes, the bending roads, that lead from shore to shore,
Will lure me home, where e’er I roam, to the land loughs of Teemore.
If I could work in Gortahurk, or Knockateggal’s slopes,
Reverse the years, revoke the smears, return to boyhood’s hopes,
I’d settle there, without a care, far from the traffic’s roar,
Where the curlew cries, as daylight dies, ’round the land loughs of Teemore.
THE LIGHTS OF LISNASKAY
From the crowded streets of London, where the ceaseless traffic flies,
Where millions live in concrete cells, beneath smoke laden skies,
Where computers rule o’er humans and machines work night and day,
My thoughts go home to the mountain, and the lights of Lisnaskay.
When uneasy dreams are shattered by the alarm clock’s strident call
And I, with countless greyfaced hordes, through street and subway crawl,
When factory gates engulf me, for another monotonous day,
My thoughts go home to the mountain, and the lights of Lisnaskay.
In the swirling traffic maelstrom of the workers homeward bound,
When languages and races mix in turmoils deafening sound,
When life itself seems futile, and the soul slumps in dismay,
My thoughts go home to the mountain and the lights of Lisnaskay.
Safely within the little room I’ve learned to call my own,
Full thirty floors above the street, at last I am alone,
Then sitting on my bed settee, I allow my thoughts to stray,
And they take me home to the mountain and the lights of Lisnaskay.
How often in the mountain bog, in the gloaming’s soft grey light
I’ve watched night’s purple shadows steal the round green hills from sight;
Lough Erne, a silver shadow, always last to fade away,
And the only guide to lead me home was the lights of Lisnaskay.
In comfort and security, many Irish families dwell,
For London offers luxuries and pays its workers well.
But not for me its pleasures, I am saving for the day
When I go back home to the mountain and the lights of Lisnaskay.
THE SEASONS
In the springtime I’ve stood on the crest of Benaghlin,
Watched the swift slopes of Elkin and Carroo swoop low,
Where the soft, fertile plain of Kinawley lay waiting,
Athrob with the growth in its first emerald glow.
In summer I’ve climbed through the silver-barked hazel
To Knockninny’s bare moat, where I sat down to rest,
Viewed the sand banks in Doon and the clean mountain meadows,
And the islands afloat on Lough Erne’s calm breast.
In the autumn when golden leaves carpet the laneways,
And the bounteous harvest its treasures unfolds,
From the fringe of Leggin, I’ve seen Toneynealth forest,
A mosaic of colours: green, yellow and gold.
In the winter on Mullinaherb brae I have lingered
And counted the lights in the darkness below;
And woke in the morning to Cuilcagh resplendent
Like a radiant bride in a mantle of snow.
I have danced in my glee to the lilt of the springtime,
I have sped in my joy through the summer’s rich glow.
I have walked through the dusk to the autumn’s fulfilment,
I shall lie down and rest when the winter winds blow.
THE MOUNTAIN ROAD
On the mountain road to Swanlinbar, the exile’s memory strays.
Lingering in the hollows, resting on the braes.
Sauntering through Drumdoney, of the gentle slope and bend,
To where the grassy spinks of Doon spring up from Gorteen glen.
He sees the schoolhouse meadow, a little emerald plain,
And he hears the fiddler’s music, from the wee house by the lane.
Then when he climbs up to the Cross before him looms the bog.
And the little road that lures him, past the bleaching bush in Skeog.
But then the summit of the road, the joyful thrill of pain,
When the vision of Lough Erne comes back to him again,
With her islands calmly sleeping, and the rushes on her shore,
Comes a promise of contentment that could last for evermore.
Now the mountain road goes tumbling down in swerving, swooping bends,
Beside the river, fresh from Schell, to Swanlinbar descends,
And nestling coyly in the hills, the friendly village waits,
With a Cavan welcome ready for the exile at the gates.
He remembers every lane and bush and the houses by the way,
And the neighbours as he knew them, before he went away,
But he who can invoke a dream, has never hoped in vain,
So the mountain road to Swanlinbar will bear his weight again.
SPRING
How softly glides the muslin mist across Clonturkle’s rim.
Enshrouded Toneyvarnogue lies, while Carn is silvery dim.
And, at my feet, the little stream is whispering as it flows,
And cattle in t
he meadow stand, in ruminative pose.
The muted music of the birds melts in the haze around.
Even the vibrant, spawning frog creates more pulse than sound.
And stillness holds the leafless tree and lace-draped hedge in thrall,
While Nature’s sounds accentuate the silence over all.
No work of man, no human noise, disturbs the placid scene,
And bird and beast and brooding earth blend into peace serene,
While I am half afraid to move, lest I should interfere;
Of all God’s creatures man alone becomes a stranger here.
Man’s brains have placed his footprints on the moon’s volcanic face.
He has even walked on nothing in the empty void of space.
He has scaled earth’s highest mountain, and traversed the ocean bed;
But contentment has eluded him, where’er his footsteps led.
Yet here beside this little stream, off Carn’s spa and spring,
The senses feel a transient gleam, as of some sacred thing.
Exquisite pain pervades the soul, that has no words to share
The promise of eternal peace that floats upon the air.
A button pressed, an engine screams, the cattle raise their ears,
The rustling grass betrays the hare, the birds discuss their fears.
The mist is wedding earth to sky, the little brook flows on,
Carn, inert, awaits the spring, but the gleam of truth is gone.
