Where the river runs
Is where they made their home
The river is running still
Though all of them have gone
A world was living there
Farm and food all found
A school was in the glen
Education sound
My mother’s dress was sackcloth
First Communion Day
Her mammy made it for her
Make do and mend the way
That world of childhood poverty
Became my world of play
Annual summer pilgrimage
A happy holiday
Glencullen’s broad horizon
A feast there for your eyes
Hills and lake and faraway
Slievemore proud Achill’s rise
A sack full of cousins
A welcome to their home
No better place in all the world
No matter where I roam
I hear the river running
I see us children play
I smell the bacon and the fire
At the dawn of each new day
This is a place I come from
Embedded in my heart
It has been with me through all my life
Right from the very start
Brian Fahy
17 August 2021
Erris Poetry 