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.
