Francis Duggan Poems

The first European to discover the sea route to India he lives on in marine history
With Columbus and Tasman and Amerigho and other great men of the sea
The Portuguese Vasco Da Gama ventured far from his native shore
Even further than his countryman Dias had travelled a decade before.
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'Tis football is the big World game of today
Grid Iron the big game of the U S of A,
Rugby League, Rugby Union and Aussie Rules Football
And soccer the biggest World game of them all
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So much about sports has been written and said
And the sports columns of newspapers by so many are read
For victorious sportsmen and women there will be a parade
And the top sporting people huge sums of money are paid
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'Tis said that he died with a smile on his face
Though laughter in his life did not have a place
In his ninetieth year he enjoyed a long span
The one who was known as 'the grumpy old man'.
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For hours Maha waited with her little daughter for to meet the Prime Minister just a minute of his time
Just to talk about her husband Mamdouh locked up in prison for an alleged serious crime
In Cuba in a notorious penitentiary remote Guantanamo Bay
Far removed from his kin and his family more than half of a World away.
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Of the complexities of Nature how can one explain
Who can tell of the workings of the amphibian's brain
Why he often does sing in the wind and the rain
His song more like a croak in the watery drain
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Oh noble Michael Collins you were Cork and Ireland's pride
And the day you died at Beal na Mblaith a part of Ireland died
You died under sniper gunfire whilst still in your life's bloom
At Beal Na Mblaith 'The Gap Of Flowers' between Bandon and Macroom.
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In old school house yard at Ruby a dark brown shorthorn cow
And leghorn pullets cackling beneath the cypress bough
This school must hold good memories and memories live somehow
Here in their lunch hour children played but where are those children now? .
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I see this little note book in China has been made
And I can only wonder how much money was paid
To the person who made it perhaps a cent or two
If what we hear of China is anyway near true.
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Back in human history in the days of Genghis Khan
To be a hero in war was to prove yourself a man
But in the Human World in some ways things have not changed since then
We still have the attitude that war separates the boys from the men.
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