Back There Between Millstreet And Ballydaly Poem by Francis Duggan

Back there between Millstreet and Ballydaly
Where the Cails winds it's way through Annagloor
I've spent some happy times there I remember
And since I've left that place in some ways I've grown poor.

Back there between Millstreet and Ballydaly
In the green country around Claraghatlea
We enjoyed our football games on Summer evenings
Good memories never seem to go away.

The high fields at the foot of Clara mountain
When the hedgerows scented with the blooms of May
And the merry skylark sang above the bracken
I hear him singing in my heart today.

Back there between Millstreet and Ballydaly
Another generation come and go
How many people since have emigrated?
How many people there might I now know?

By some I have been dismissed as a dreamer
And far worse things than that been said of me
But the good things from the past we all remember
And the bad we try to block from memory.

Back there between Millstreet and Ballydaly
Another generation in prime day
And they too in the future will remember
Their youthful years when they live far away.