WHAT DOES YOUR CURRAGH MEAN TO YOU?

What does your Curragh mean to you?

 

A place where I’m happy

see friends and learn things

there’s the army and sheep

and historic rings.

*

Prickly furze bushes

evergreens and blackberries,

wild wax-cap mushrooms,

the old cemetery.

Oak, chestnut and beech,

birch, cherry blossom

Playing conkers with friends

at St. Leger’s Bottoms.

*

Winter red robins

owls, kingfishers, pigeons

magpies and skylarks,

lapwings and chickens.

*

Sheep, rabbits, hares,

squirrels, grey and red

A hedgehog run over

by a car and was dead!

*

Foxes, deer, cows

badgers and frogs

tadpoles and cats

and of course, horses and dogs.

*

Spacious for sports

for a walk with your pet

or rugby and soccer

explore where you’re let.

*

Of our army we’re proud

for they serve or country

but there’s work to be had

on the golf course so lovely.

*

In Centra, the post office

or as a fit fire-fighter

a teacher or jockey

paramedic or writer.

*

Oh what of the tales

that are long handed-down,

of Stonehenge standing here

or a lake underground.

Fionn, Bran and Sceolan

who used to play here,

guard the plains at Ballymany

for all to hold dear.

*

A greedy man owned

all this plain for himself,

’till St. Brigid cured him

and her Cloak spread itself.

It covered the plain

life, land and water,

to be known forever

as St. Brigid’s Pastures.

*

There’s the boxer Dan Donnelly

who down in the Hollow

beat Cooper from England

to become a great hero.

His arm was preserved

in Kilcullen for years

and now travels the world

for the Irish to cheer.

*

A Massacre here

on the Plains of Kildare

at the old Gibbet Rath

in the bold ninety-eight.

The Redcoats did charge

the unarmed rebels down

there were eighty-five widows

in old Kildare Town.

*

“Is there?” they asked us

“anything you would change?”

‘Well they ought to do more

to clean up the place.

The sheep poo’s annoying

everywhere to be found,

we’d like nets on the goalposts

and a better playground.

Stop the sheep in the gardens

and corral them with fences

No more evictions

let’s come to our senses.’

*

Should a tourist enquire

“What route should I follow?”

There’s the Military Graveyard

And Dan Donnelly’s Hollow.

*

One of the biggest green-grassy

plains in the world

it has the Army museum

full of old army stuff.

There’s the Racecourse and races

and trains crossing there

while Christy Moore sings

‘The Curragh of Kildare.’

 

Scoil Naomh Padraig, the Curragh 5th and 6th Class, December 2014, with Mario Corrigan, Celine Broughal, Margaret Riordan and Claire Connelly, Kildare Library and Arts Services.