Sliabh Luachra's Narrow Roads

The narrow mountain road to Cladoch Valley That winds it's way around the bracken hill I still have little mental pictures of it And I hear the rippling of the mountain rill. The road from Gneeveguilla in east Kerry That leads up the steep slope to Knocknagree And winds it's way up to the higher country The beauty of the landscape I still see. I hear 'Denis the weaver' play his fiddle The music comes to me from far away One of the great traditional musicians The memory of the man lives on today. The by roads and the cross roads of Sliabh Luachra Off of the main road towards Killarney from Rathmore Around Barraduff and Shrone and the Paps country Immortalized by the bards in days of yore. People like the legendary Aogan O Rathaille In Irish literature his an enduring name It's been wrote he died whilst in his early fifties He was the first to bring to Sliabh Luachra fame. Eoghan Rua O Suilleabhain the great wit of rural Ireland He led a very colourful career He recited his poems at the cross roads in Sliabh Luachra And the people came from miles around to hear. The narrow roads that wind along the mountains The gurglings of the upland streams and rills The Paps of Shrone that overlook east Kerry In Sliabh Luachra of the valleys and the hills. Sliabh Luachra once the home of Irish culture It's fame spread far distant from Erin's shore And the poetry that went all around the world Was first read at the crossroads near Rathmore. Some say that the past can't be linked to the present But as sure as there is a tomorrrow they are wrong Our culture came from the past generations And to the distant past our roots belong. The narrow roads that wind around Sliabh Luachra Along the valleys and by the bracken hills And in the old home of Gaelic Irish culture I hear the gurglings of the streams and rills.