She lived in the Bronx
But will be buried in Burrishoole
Beside the quiet water of Clew Bay
A life lived in America
The bustle and the noise
But home is calling
Ever was the way
The Last Judgement window
In Newport’s towering church
Will welcome home the girl who went away
The crowded streets of New York City
Far off fade away
I am home at last
Home I mean to stay
How many millions went like this
Away across the sea
To London and to Manchester
And to Boston breezily
And lived their lives hard working
In noisy busy streets
To end their days on foreign shores
Where only memories meet
But some come home at close of day
Coffined and confined
To lay their bones on familiar stones
In a place always in mind
My mammy even better
Came back before she died
Sixteen years she had at home
And the heavens how they cried
Brian Fahy
22 November 2022
+ Many Irish people are brought home when they die to be laid to rest in their home place. The contrast could not be greater, to see the name of the big city where they lived their lives, and then the quiet homestead that they came from. My mammy had the best of it. Twenty years in Ireland followed by sixty years in England, and finally sixteen more years in Ireland again. On the day of her funeral the heavens opened.
Erris Poetry 