Ned Buckley

An old song from Sliabh Luachra comes to my memory From the pen of Ned Buckley the last bard of Knocknagree I hear the dunnock piping on high bush in hedgerow And o'er the lush green meadows swallows fly to and fro. In the poems of Ned Buckley the shy cock pheasant crow And the song of the corncrake comes from the long ago And across the fields and valleys the grass growing breezes blow And the dipper he is singing where the stream rapids flow. In the poems of Ned Buckley links to the past survive And in his songs and verses the bard is still alive He belong to an era Sliabh Luachra's golden time And in his beloved Village the last great man of rhyme. In the annals of Sliabh Luachra you will find Ned Buckley's name And his verses are still living his was not a fleeting fame And his poems are still recited far from his own countryside And from the Cork and Kerry border his fame spread far and wide. In the verses of Ned Buckley flowers and roses are in bloom And his sunlit fields and meadows scent of Nature's sweet perfume And the linnet he is singing on the flowering hawthorn tree And the redpoll and the chaffinch pipe in woods of Knocknagree