Welcome... Fáilte... Walcome...

Featured Poems:

The Dead Sleep on a Mountain Top

The dead sleep on a mountaintop
In cairns amid the wind gusting strong
In swirling mists and fogs that swirl
Prehaps they are spirits that throng
That we climber think of
As being a mere cloud and fog and mist
Maybe at us climbing they're unhappy
And their swirling tells us to desist?

For there is the land of the spirits
And their is the lands of living men
And once one has lived in one
He should not return again
But living men in a sense of the divine
They climbing hope to find, they seek
And disturb the peace of the dead
Who sleep upon the peak .

Climbing the Paps

The breasts of a Goddess
Of former pagan times
The steep sides of rock and water
This poet slowly climbs
And above upon the peak
Beside a cairn old
I stand upon the summit
And observe the view in wind so cold.
In on the summit I stand
Far far from the worlds crowds
In swirling fog on mountaintop
My head truly in the clouds
That round this mountain have descended
As they always do
As if a cloak sent from the Gods
To stop us sharing their view.
For though some like mountaineering
I am not one of those men
And I doubt that I will bother
With climbing such again
Maybe those areas ARE sacred
And are meant to be left alone to be
Undisturbed, the ciarns and bodies
Should remain from folks like me.
And those who foil the folly
And climbing the view to see insist
Shall the view of the Gods kept from them
By the ever swirling mist...

Amid Mountians Glorious
and Tall

Amid mountains glorious and tall we drive
Round bending roads and great views
On roads of Kerry and of West Cork
That to Bantry I drove through.

They speak of Scotland and its beauty
It is so, I have been there
But equal and surpassing any
Are the hills around Kenmare.

Steeped in legend and in tradition
And history, a ghosts and souls
I came upon while driving some people
On a roadside, playing road-bowls

Here tradition and history is sacred
Though little of it the locals speak
And among its hills and vallys I find
The peace that a tourist does seek.

Hill Walking and Poetry Readings

Myself and Derek Fanning from Birr went to the Poets Express meeting in Bantry in Co. Cork on Saturday (11/07) last, and en route - as you do - went hill walking the Paps in Kerry.

Now for a man who was never in Kerry before - though Ive been as far as Belgrade in Serbia! - hill walking was something I imagined that involved paths, allbeit steep ones - but I was in for an education!!!

There was no paths, and it was more like mountain climbing!!!

Needless to say I was banjaxed on reaching the top, and I stayed on the first one while Derek went on to the second peak, while I settled down at 2000 feet neath a cairn or stones in a tent, on cold hard stone with the same for a pillow in a tent to sleep.

Which sounds like hell.

But was blissful heaven!!!

On eventullly reaching the bottom - which he would have done in half the time if Derek was alone!!! - we very sodden and wet headed back to the car.

After a change of clothes in Killarney we were all set anthough tight on time for the Poets Express event in Bantry.

I done a reading to a great response, and Derek read some poems and limericks and sang a few songs.

There was a very enjoyable meal after in Carradines resteraunt for all involved and we went to Kylyras house out on the Sheeps Head peninsula for an informal poetry meeting, genearl chat and recording session.

While there, I came up with the foundations for a few verses which I expanded to become the ones posted here.

Hoe you enjoy!