Dunshaughlin, Now and Again

Dunshaughlin, Now and Again

 

On Main Street, wide and welcoming, we walk,

engaged in daily routine, the buying of groceries,

a coffee-shop-stop, a commute to work on the 109,

M3 connecting once sleeping satellite to Dublin’s star.

 

These are the fine school days of Indian Summer

of the child’s treasure-trove leaves and blackberries,

of the teenager returned to uniform, a gangly swan

barely plumed learning to fly above shedding earth.

 

Queen Maeve of Tara arrives at harvest,

her skirt a moon-gown, from Kilmessan to Ratoath wide,

bodice cut of Slane, Navan and Trim,

a seasoned silk, a matrimony of now and then.

 

Peggy Murphy writes here of Derrickstown Hill,

while Tom Englishby crosses the Irish Sea in ballad,

the passage a lamentation for his Dunshaughlin,

a rowing back of black waters, a honeyed vision.

 

The bell of Patrick and Seachnall rings the Angelus,

day ending with clanging heard on the breeze

by Kings of Lagore tending crannóg stone, and wood

of home, Domhnach Seachlainn, a settled and holy place.

 

Foley’s Forge relays this din of heartbeats, anvil struck,

shoed horse clip-clopping from faded farms to mart,

and colourful years, green and gold banners,

Sam Maguire a boat on the crest of a wave.

 

Time ebbs and flows, ripples veined in villages and lore,

exhumed in the shadow of the famine land,

footstones raised like shields across the Boyne Valley

past Norman castles, Celtic Tiger, lingering pandemic.

 

Orla Fay

It's wonderful to share my poem written under commission by Poetry Ireland for Poetry Town 2021. A recording of the poem and other pieces performed for Poetry Town and Culture Night can be found on Meath County Council's Youtube Channel here. 

Congratulations to all the other artists and thanks again to Poetry Ireland, Meath County Council Arts Office and Meath Library Service for the opportunity. Thanks to Margaret McCann, local co-ordinator for Dunshaughlin Poetry Town, for her time and support.