Mullaghmore, Co Clare

 "Mullaghmore", The Burren, Co Clare.  Oil on Canvas.  Patricia Kavanagh

"O wild pulse of beauty and famed ancient rooms!

Where the cranesbill and sandworth and spring gentian blooms

And the whitethroat and wheatear their migrant song bear

And the pocaire gaoithe is king of the air.

In the years when I laboured neath an alien sky,

Like a lover your absence brought tears to my eyes.

When the lowered sky and people and walls fenced me in,

The breath of your spirit released me again.

And fond thoughts bridged my mountain in The Burren so fair

And I breathed again in your sweet and fragrant air.

I bathed in silence, your wildness embraced

And felt your spirit seep through me in your holy place.

But of late I've been wakened from a turbulent sleep

As the roar of the diggers did trundle and creep

O'er your rare rugged beauty and ancient retreat,

Erasing the Songlines of our ancestors' feet.

And a gentle voice whispered, "Don't enslave what is free

And do not lay claim to the rock, the hill or the sea.

Let love, care and reason be your guiding hand 

For lonely is the stranger in his own land."

Oh heed the cry of the mountain; fear Gaia's deep wrath.

Do not package our soul and parade it in cloth.

Let our children interpret their world from within

As they tread o'er your wild open spaces again.

And let them go to their mountain in The Burren so fair.

Let them breathe once again in your sweet and your fragrant air.

Let them bathe in your silence and your wildness embrace

And feel your spirit seep through them in your holy place".

A poem by Tim Dennehy