The pub was closed
His wife had gone to bed
He pulled a pint
And sat beside his fire
A play was in his head
He got hold of a copybook
Pencil in his hand
And through the night he sat and wrote
A play for Ireland
He’d heard a story of a man
A local man and old
Who got himself a girleen
Matchmaker had it sold
The poor girl lost her sanity
In hospital was found
John B shook his head in shame
Is this our holy ground!
And so he sat beside his fire
Through the quiet hours of night
And made his marks upon the page
To Ireland’s delight
They saw their cruel ways writ large
His play stirred up the fuss
John B became the common man
And represented us
Brian Fahy
11 February 2022
+ I am reading We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole. He tells the story of John B Keane, the Listowel, County Kerry playwright, and of how he came to write his play, Sive.
Erris Poetry 