Samhain ar Teamhair na Ri

The Mound of the Hostages, Tara, which has an alignment close to Samhain with the sun. It is a meagalithic passage tomb, dated c. 3000bc

Hi everyone.  Happy Hallowe'en.  I finished my murder ballad this morning, 52 lines, exciting!  It was hard though.  I'm even more excited as I've written a poem as Gaeilge for the first time and it's pasted below.  As it's a first and it is about the feast of Samhain on the Hill of Tara I'm letting it appear on my blog. 

Oíche Shamhna

Teamhair mo chroí, Teamhair mo chroí,               
táim ag lorg an púca agus an cailleach
ar do sliabh.

Tá an Samhain ag teacht agus táim caillte
leis an gaoth atá ag séideadh
trasna na duilleoga

agus atá ag tiomaint na scamaill
sa spéir liath agus brúite
leis an tráthnóna.

Beidh an capall ag rith suas an bóthar
tar éis tamaill. Beidh Cormac an rí
ag marcaíocht

go dtí an tine mór. Beidh féasta ar siúl
agus feicfidh mé na daoine aosta
ag siúl leis na daoine beo.

Orla Ní Fhéich

Hallowe'en

Tara my heart, Tara my heart,
I am looking for the ghost and the witch
on your hill.

Samhain is coming and I am lost
with the wind that is blowing
across the leaves

and that is driving the clouds
in the sky grey and bruised
with the evening.

The horse will be running up the road
in a  while.  King Cormac
will be riding

to the big fire.  There will be a feast
and I will see the ancient people
walking with the living.

Orla Fay

Remembrance of Tara

Moon of Horses/Rose Moon/Green Corn Moon/Lotus Moon

I wrote this poem some years ago so I've dug it out now as its time has returned.

Remembrance of Tara


A sticky June day has lost its intensity
To become an old and forgiving evening
And nowhere on earth has time more propensity
To dawdle and dwell than on the Hill of Tara.
Darkness too is slow and lazy in its coming;
It humbly kneels before the summer solstice.

Blue twilight air is circling with fairy magic
Evoking the noble spirit of Fianna dead
Alive in nocturnal halls, doomed and tragic
In the grey dawn and toppled by morning.
Romance is pulled from history by the moon
Rising sickle and sweet over St. Patrick

So the shadows move and dance in the warm light,
Unafraid they play to a ghostly, melodic harp,
Undaunted by Trim, Navan, Slane and Dunshaughlin light
Shimmering in the dark distance, seeping at a glance.
Tara floats above the world of men, tainted and sleeping
In the lowland where few even dream of Xanadu.

Beating drums and shrill pipes sound out to folklore
And its heroes: Oisin ag teacht trasna na dtonnta
As Diarmaid and Grainne are reunited by the fire
Where Fionn and Aenghus share the salmon of knowledge.
The druids, those hooded men lift hands to the sky,
Mixing the stars with berries and herbs and water.

The bard, file and fool, speaking aloud the dusky poem,
Pre-empting Yeats and the honey that dripped from his pen.
Salt of the earth in the bread they break on table tops,
Wheat and flour on wood and pagan prayer.
Men of ash and women of dust relive the hour
Before the grave with flowers blooming in their hair.

The dead are quick to evade the approaching dawn.
Like amber stone the sun sits on the horizon,
Glinting golden, beauty caught in a blackbird’s song
Heralding a new day of birth, death and all in-between.
Tara lies still, a hump on Meath’s back, a geographical fact,
A landmark along the main Navan to Dublin road.

Orla Fay 2002