You'll find
a lot about the Irish and those mystical creatures
--the faeries--
here, but first let's start with a poem by an
Irish author that I read and loved. I copied it so
that I could read it to my son, who is also a poet
and writer. I hope you, too, will enjoy it. If
poetry is simply not your thing, then just check
out the drop box below and see if you can
find what you're looking for.
All around, shards of a lost tradition:
From the Rough Field I went to school
In the Glen of the Hazels. Close by
Was the bishopric of the Golden Stone;
The cairn of Carleton's homesick poem.
Scattered over the hills, tribal-
And placenames, uncultivated pearls.
No rock or ruin, dun or dolmen
But showed memory defying cruelty
Through an image-encrusted name.
The heathery gap where the Rapparee,
Shane Barnagh, saw his brother die -
On a summer's day the dying sun
Stained its colours to crimson:
So breaks the heart, Brish-mo-Cree.
The whole landscape a manuscript
We had lost the skill to read,
A part of our past disinherited;
But fumbled, like a blind man,
Along the fingertips of instinct.
The last Gaelic speaker in the parish
When I stammered my school Irish
One Sunday after mass, crinkled
A rusty litany of praise:
Tá an Ghaeilge againn arís . . .*
Tír Eoghain:Land of Owen,
Province of the O'Niall;
The ghostly tread of O'Hagan's
Barefoot gallowglasses marching
To merge forces in Dun Geanainn
Push southward to Kinsale!
Loudly the war-cry is swallowed
In swirls of black rain and fog
As Ulster's pride, Elizabeth's foemen,
Founder in a Munster bog.
*We have the Irish again.
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Now read their stories in Faery Tales
In Memory of Those who Died-
-Prelude to Irish History Pages
