People don’t forget a devastation
The hurt it caused
The human tragedy
It lives on in our folklore
Our children know the tale
The water came and swept us up
And carried all away
Back in old Glencullen
I heard the story told
About a cruel landslide
That killed cattle in a fold
That was nineteen thirty-one
Another one came then
And took the bridge away with it
A new one built again
The flood that’s told in Genesis
Happened long ago
We hear the story told again
At Mass to let us know
How people thought an act of God
To punish us for sin
And Noah built himself an ark
To keep him safe within
And devastation comes again
In war and war and war
No act of God but wickedness
At work in the human core
And even this great earthquake
Holds human fault inside
For heartless reckless building
Has crushed a human tide
Brian Fahy
14 February 2023
Erris Poetry 