Through Old Claraghatlea

Through Old Claraghatlea a mile from Millstreet Town The Cails from Kippagh slowly winds it's way down Through flat and damp fields where rank rushes grow On towards the Finnow it ever does flow. Through the place of the badger, the rook and gray crow The winds of rain of early Winter do blow From the high fields of Claramore by Clara hill The sunless gray morning has a wintery chill. A high for the day of a cool two degrees The migratory redwings are chirping on the leafless trees They sense when their northern woods of snow are clear And they fly home to breed in the Spring of the year. In December in Duhallow the birds do not sing And almost three months till the calendar Spring The rills flowing bank high swollen by heavy rains And brown flood waters gurgling in the roadside drains. From the place where I first looked on the light of day Claraghatlea in Millstreet I live far away in December there when the old year has grown old The weather is windy and rainy and cold.