MY SWEET KILLYBEGS.

 

My dear Killybegs, I’m thinking about you,

As I lay down my head on my pillow to rest,

And e’er my eyes open to the dawn of the morning

In dreams I’ll be there in that town I love best.

 

I can see through my slumbers the home I was born in,

And the cradle that rock’d me standing still by the wall,

But I miss the kind friends off the seats lying vacant,

Who comes nightly to ceilidhe in droll Donegal.

 

Father is gone and mother has followed,

Who looked on my childhood with joy and with care,

Ah, no! I can’t stay, I must go, I’m but dreaming,

How sad on awaking for I’ll not be there.

 

Ah! There’s the old school in off the road-side,

The name o’er the door I barely can trace,

And the kindly old Master who taught me my lessons,

Is dead long, I know, may his soul rest in peace.

 

I can see from the window of that darling old homestead

That beautiful harbour reflecting the town,

With naught to disturb its placid blue waters

But the lapping of swans from Lough-head swimming down.

 

Croughlin and Carin sit watching each other

As they used to some score and a half years ago,

And flowers bloom as fair all along Carntullagh,

And larks sing as loud over lovelyBenroe.

 

And out there by Roshin, waves they are hushing,

And racing each other to first kiss the shore.

With Drimanoo booming up out in the distance

Resisting the spray from off wild Bulligmore.

 

Roscorkin and Fintra, Largy and Shalvey,

Towney and Muckross, how my heart grieved,

When I took my last look on your sweet smiling meadows

From lovely immortal, far-famed Slieveleague.

 

And yet I’ll return to see their fair faces

That dwell in those places, but, alas! some are dead,

Their fond memories I’ll cherish with pent-up devotion

From fair Killybegs to the cliffs of Glenhead.

 

Yes, I’ll go back when my dream it is over,

If God gives me strength there I’ll recline

In the bosom of you, my sweet native village,

I’ll burn out life’s taper in that dear home of mine.

 

When the cold hand of death wraps his mantle around me

Then lay me to rest in the graveyardclose by

Where my friends they shall come to pray for and mourn me,

And there, with the swift winds,Breathe sigh for sigh.

 

And in silence I hear their sweet supplication

To the King of kings who rules over all,

beseeching his blessing on my sweet native village,

And all round the borders of droll Donegal.

JAMES CONWELL (Shoemaker)

St Catherine’s Road, Killybegs.