Bernard O’Donoghue

Past the odour-of-sanctity primroses in their tight nests of wrinkle-green by the well, and the violets, hardly daring to breathe, on the ditch above them. On to the wet fields and the wiry filigree below the girl’s-dress mauve elegance of this flower, rooted amid rush-spires, just come out at the start of a new season.

My mother took to farming like a...

For Eileen

It meant you had to be from somewhere else To get a drink. But that was all right for us; We always were, whether travelling west Or east. The trouble came when, dozing On the boat, you half came round and saw The seabirds bathing, the gannet plunging Towards his bath, and battalions Of unknown children, speaking in accents Different from their parents’. Your book Has fallen...

For Eugene O’Connell

Despite its soft ephemerality, They say the growth of elder is a sign Of age-long human habitation. Under the elders in our decaying farmyard Stands the last sugán chair, rotted at all Its skilfully carved joints, so the lightest Tenant would cause it to collapse.

There’s one like it in the dying house Of Padraig O’Keeffe at Glounthane Cross: Not...

If you doubt, you can put your fingers In the holes where the oar-pegs went. If you doubt still, look past its deep mooring To the mountains that enfold the corrie’s Waterfall of lace through which, they say, You can see out but not in. If you doubt that, hear the falcon Crying down from Gneeves Bog Cut from the mountain-top. And if you doubt After all these witnesses, no boat Dredged...