This poem by James Conwell of Killybegs was published in Bygones:

Oh, there’s Diana rising over Carn, full

And on the town of Killybegs her golden light she spills,

Reflecting in the harbour St Mary’s on the hill,

A monument of olden days of faith and hope and skill.

 

Stars are winking earthwards; all is calm and still

Save music sweetly flowing from every brook and rill.

Troutlets ring the crystal pools above their umberbeds

And wild ducks haunt the bracken on the borders of Lough Head.

 

Across the spawn that reaches to Benroe,

From out the purple heather the Moorcock loudly crows;

The cuckoo sweetly calling from the tree tops ever green

And the corncrake is mimicked from Brookhill to Carnaween.

 

‘Tis sweet to gaze on Croaghlin when fading from your sight

And sweeter when illumined by the Rotten Island light;

The waves that dash along its base, they hail from Drimanoo,

They spend their force at Roshin and return full charged anew.

 

There’s music in their dancing, seems a host of angels sing,

Then lustral dews are falling and the Angelus bell it rings;

There is romance in the stillness and a seeming fairy spell

Through the vista near the Rectory and around St Catherine’s Well.

 

There’s a dullness creeping o’er me, and I must seek repose;

For tonight I will be dreaming e’er my sleepy eyes they close.

Of tomorrow in the offing, and the sunshine on the crags,

Reflecting in the harbour and the church and Killybegs.