In Claraghatlea Poem by Francis Duggan

In Claraghatlea my old Townland song birds sing all the day
And the fields by the old streamlet flushed with the flowers of May
And the hawthorns on the hedgerows cloaked in blossoms white as snow
And the moorhen she is chirping where the Finnow waters flow

Through places green and rushy it slowly winds it's way
On towards the great Blackwater it babbles night and day
As it has done forever and will do forever more
The river's waters journey to the distant ocean shore.

Above the slopes of Clara hill the lark carols in the sky
A descendant of the little lark that I heard as a boy
His music filled the mountain air as upward he did fly
And a thing of natural beauty is always a thing of joy.

In Claraghatlea my old Townland I spent my better years
Yet for my fading memories I don't have any tears
I fell in love with Nature there and my love for her did last
Though that was many years ago and that now in my past.

In Claraghatlea west of Millstreet Town I grew into a man
And even the longest human life is not a lenghty span
And the boys and girls I went to school with Like me have known a better day
Their grand children school going children now and they grow old and gray.

In Claraghatlea my old Townland the Spring is in her prime
It is a lovely time of year that inspire the poets to rhyme
Of flower decked fields and leafy woods and hedgerows where songbirds nest and sing
Far north of here and miles away in the green northern Spring.