An Ageing Bloke From Claraghatlea Poem by Francis Duggan

An ageing bloke from Claraghatlea is all I'll ever be
Who has travelled far from the old Townland though it would seem to me
That others have travelled far more and more Lands than i have seen
Though that does not prove one's worth as a person to tell of places you have been

To distant from your Homeland that does not seem worth a boast
Though to some great adventurers people have drunk a toast
Some born with the genes of wanderlust inherited from an ancestral race
But the stay at home's i envy they have a sense of place.

An ageing bloke from Claraghatlea living far south of Clara hill
Yet in my flights of fancy i can hear the babbling rill
Flowing to the river by my old home from here many miles away
And see swallows flying above the old fields in the morning of the day.

An ageing fellow from Claraghatlea near the Duhallow Town of Millstreet
Living far from the flat and damp fields where the rill and river meet
Yet in my flights of fancy i can hear the chaffinch sing
When the flowers are in the old fields of Duhallow in the Spring.