Old Clara Hill Poem by Francis Duggan

Old Clara hill in Millstreet in Duhallow
Your well worn paths the goats run up and down
For centuries overlooking the green country
Long before there ever was a Millstreet Town.

Old Clara hill your years cannot be counted
For you have been around as long as time
Duhallow poets have written much about you
And you've inspired Sliabh luachra's bards to rhyme.

Old Clara hill beneath a clump of bracken
The skylark on her nest is hid away
The future generation of hill singers
In her small eggs with brown spots through the gray.

Old Clara hill to the cross upon your summit
I often climbed in Summer days long gone
And eat the whortleberries from your heather
Such happy memories with me still live on.

Old Clara Hill you've been around for centuries
And men of sixty years are in decay
You have not changed since I was a young fellow
And I've grown gray and older by the day.

I've heard the skylark singing high above you
And I've seen you in your Winter hat of snow
And from your slopes I have seen Duhallow's beauty
Though that now seems quite a long time ago.

Old Clara hill I often think about you
Though from you I live thousands of miles away
You will always be the mountain of my childhood
And I miss you more than words can ever say.