O Eire

In May of 1995 Dodie and I went to Ireland where we spent 10 days driving around the countryside in a rental car, staying in bed and breakfasts. I wrote a lengthy and detailed (and rather interesting and witty) (if I do say so myself) account of our adventures there in an article titled ‘Irish Holiday’. However it was lost forever in the great computer crash of 2003 and I had neither the memory or the energy to recreate it (it did teach me a valuable lesson about backing up files though). All that has survived of that Irish trip is this one poem.


For those of you who know something about Irish history you know that Ireland has been invaded and conquered many times. The truly amazing thing about that history however is in the fact that in every case, instead of turning Ireland into a slave country of the conquering nation, the conquerors were assimilated into Irish culture and in most cases became more Irish than the native Irish who were already there. This was written with that in mind.

O Eire

O Eire,
who could taste your sweetness
and not cry out for more,
who could stand upon your cliff tops,
or walk the banks
of the river Shannon,
and not feel your mystic magic;

your hills
breathe with life,
so young and fresh,
but with a wisdom
so ancient and old.

O Eire,
even the mightiest invader
is overwhelmed
by the power of your beauty,
succumbing not to your sword
but to your spirit,
taking not their lives,
rather
taking their souls,
making them prisoners
to that
which they had come to imprison;

O Eire.
.
.