It Has Been Awhile Since I Lived Near Millstreet Town Poem by Francis Duggan

It has been awhile since i have lived near Millstreet Town
Where Finnow from the high country journey on down
Through old fields by ditches and many a hedgerow
With a babble towards the Blackwater it ever does flow

Yet where-ever my life's journey to carries me
A bloke from Duhallow is all i can be
The Duhallow accent is with me today
And with me till i die is likely to stay

In dreams i often walk in the old fields again
And hear the birds sing in the drizzling rain
The swallows home to breed from lands far away
Chase flying insects above their home fields all the day

Cattle out of wintering sheds on nutritious grass weight does gain
And Nature's flowers in full bloom in the sun after rain
And the hawthorns cloaked in their blossoms of pale white to gray
They are at their finest in the prime of the May

It has been awhile since i have heard the silver tongued rill
Babbling to the river down the field by the hill
And though the old fields i loved i may never more see
A bloke from Duhallow is all i can be.