Lamentation

A Gathering

We were all there

Me and Shirley

Michael Neylon and Mick

Kay Vaughan from the pub with her hazelwood stick

Anthony Howley who secured the plot

And that fiddler from Doolin

Whose name I forgot

Derek and Gloria, Mary and John

The barman from Nagles - the miserable one.

And Aidan Malone - a smashing young lad

His mother Breda and Patrick his dad

Simon and Frances and the crowd from Lahinch

Donal, Young Connor and Margaret Lynch

A couple from Belfast who drove through the night

And old friends from Dublin who set off at first light

Kevin stone-faced in black suit and tie

Michael dressed likewise, too shocked to cry

Jo was wept out

Her face numbed by grief

The pain unassuaged

By religious belief

Father Ned Crosby led the applause

And the ceilidh band played

(Kilfenora of course)

Katie's fingers danced on her flute

With six fiddlers' bowing and we listeners mute

Clustering round that old hawthorn tree

Bent east by storms formed far out at sea

We were all there

Young and old

The people you knew

Yes, all were gathered

But where pray were you?

Ruined cottage in Kilfenora

Footnote: I wrote this on what would have been Paul's sixty third birthday - in place of the cards I sent each year.