They left their mother
They left the family home
And went to murky Manchester
They left the western foam
Nothing there but poverty
No future in those fields
They had to strike for far away
See what the future yields
They found domestic service
And then they met a war
Kept Manchester moving
Made their homes afar
Travelled back most every year
Their mother to embrace
But home was now in England
Among a foreign race
Now my mother’s daughters
Are back in old Mayo
Life has turned full circle
Funny how things go
The call of home never goes away
Erris knows its own
Our hearts are in the old place
No matter where we roam
Brian Fahy
18 October 2022
+ ‘They’ are my mother and her sisters. Four girls went to Manchester in the 1930s – Katie, Bea, Eileen and Sheila. Their children, the Manchester cousins, knew one another very well, growing up.
Erris, the place they left behind, is a stunningly dramatic corner of northwest Mayo. All my summers have been spent there.
Erris Poetry 