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A year ago, Domhnall Mac Síthigh (Danny Sheehy), died tragically in a boating accident off the coast of Portugal. We went to visit our great friend Maire Uí Ghráda, Danny’s widow. In the course of the visit, she brought us around her local area, Baile Eaglaise, and I got my first swim in the Atlantic in over 30 years. It was a wonderful time for all of us in the course of which this poem came in, as it were. I am grateful to Máire for the help she gave me correcting my very poor Irish, but in saying that I am glad to be having a go at it again after all these years. It connects me to a deeper part of myself for which I am grateful.
A Sudden Bend in the Road
A sight I have not seen for years
two dogs drive cattle along
marshalled to the side
kept out of harm
from passing cars
on the narrow winding bóithrín*
controlled with military precision
by the lean rapidly leaping canines
An mbeidh báisteach amárach
a dúirt sí ón ngluaisteán
ní bheidh ar seisean.
bhfuel ní bheidh tú díomhaoin
tá a lán le déanamh
is fíor é, slán go fóill**
We moved slowly past
the narrow line in tight
formation
I am back in Baile Eaglaise
back in time
back to my own roots
a place I have missed
almost my whole life
back to the core of me
those cúpla focal as Gaeilge***
rock me into the steadiness
of who I am
fear cathrach Gaelach
mo shaol go hiomlán i mBéarla
is ganntanas é seo****
Peadar Ó Chleirigh
July 2018
*a small track of a road
**Will it rain tomorrow
she asked from the car
it won’t he replied
well you won’t be idle
there is a lot to do
that’s true goodbye
***a few words of Irish
****a city Irishman
reared entirely through English
and that’s a loss
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