The Blackwater River Poem by Francis Duggan

Home to badger and rook and the silver backed crow
The flat rushy fields where the Blackwater flow
On it's way through Duhallow in north Cork towards Youghal sixty kilometers or more
To join with saltwater at the Atlantic shore

The Blackwater in full flood is an amazing sight
It submerges acres of countryside around flowing at a great height
All of the waterways ofSliabh Luachra, Duhallow, north and east Cork it receives on it's ocean going way
Flowing with a loud babble by night and by day

At Nature's amazing creations our wonder only does grow
How old are the rivers would anyone know
They were very old before the birth of the first woman and man
Long before nthe age of the dinosaurs began

Some stories not born out of a source of joy
That i heard of the Blackwater when i was a boy
Around the fire grate on Winter nights old timers did tell
Of the people who drowned in big floods and of the people who lost many animals as well

From it's source in Sliabh Luachra by a Boggeragh hill
It's voice grows to a loud babble that is never still
To the Atlantic near Yoghal it flows night and day
Through the flat rushy country from it's source far away.