Claraghatlea Poem by Francis Duggan

Claraghatlea my original homeplace am I ever more to see
Yet those I know and who still live there live on in my memory
It is Spring nesting birds piping on bushes and trees and every hedgerow
And in the river the dipper singing the dark brown bird with breast as white as snow

Barn swallows home for breeding from warmer climates far away
Above the old fields chasing insects on a cool damp April day
Cattle out from sheds in farmyard chewing their cuds by hedgerow lay
Grass for them is a welcome change from months of eating silage and hay.

Claraghatlea where I was born towards the west of Millstreet Town
Where I penned my early verses and daydreamed of literary renown
Daydreams that did not come to fruition but daydreams just that as we do know
But I was younger and more ambitious more than three decades ago.

In the old fields wildflowers blooming and on the ditch of the bohreen
Snowdrops and early primroses in their beauty to be seen
In Claraghatlea where I was born within view of Clara Hill
Where now the buttercups are blooming by the ever babbling rill.