Mid June In Old Sliabh Luachra Poem by Francis Duggan

The nesting birds sing in Sliabh Luachra in the leafy groves of Lisheen
And Nature's flowers bloom in the old fields and everywhere looking so lush and green
And the sheep are high on the Pap Mountains overlooking the small fields of Shrone
And the lark in the gray sky is singing above where the bracken cloaks many a stone
Sliabh Luachra the home of great poets and musicians and though their bones with the long departed do lay
In the towns and villages of the Cork-Kerry border their legends are living today
Their poems, stories and music still living despite the passing of the decades of time
In death as in life they are legends the makers of music and rhyme
On the steep slopes of the old Pap Mountains the heather around the stones grow
And to the small rushy fields of Sliabh Luachra the Seasons they come and they go
And from the rushy fields by the mountains by many a ditch and hedgerow
The silver tongued streams of Sliabh Luachra on down to the big river flow
It's mid June now in old Sliabh Luachra a beautiful time of the year
And often in my flights of fancy the song of the robin I hear.