A Bus-Trip to Dingle

Never again to Dingle I
will go or undergo the stress,
To see my parents’ house awry,
The garden now a wilderness.
The locals hadn’t got a notion
As I spoke English like the rest,
I didn’t like the wild grey ocean,
Or the landscape-picturesque.

In my heart a battle wages,

In Kruger’s where I went with Dad,

Harry Lush would talk for ages,
‘bout the exploits of ‘the lad’.
Of an Evening it was packed there,
With ‘Ryan’s Daughter’ under way,
I became a budding actor,
In the school house near the bay.
The photos on the walls still tell,
of happier times – a sunny spell,
When a Cinematic Bawd Bawn could,
Bring Dingle town to Hollywood.

Then I went to sliabh an Iolair,
Under her ‘geis’ I had to see,

memories that weaved no duller,

twisting thru’ the years to me,
Ma an’ Dad an’ me an’ Mee’hall,
On our way up towards the peer,
Sue whispering to my mother,
A lonely secret in her ear.

Oh why did I come home to be,
Remembering on Dingle’s strands,
Where I can’t even hear the sea,
Just recollections clapping hands.

* Bawd Bawn (Gaelic: an bád bán ) - ‘the white boat’ was the name for the emigration boat to the USA.
** Sliabh Iolair - Eagle Mountain in west Kerry
*** Geis – In Gaelic tradition ‘a spell’ or power which obliges a person to behave in certain manner.