by Michael Patrick Moore
‘Come here to me, let me tell ya, don’t the living be busy today?’
comings and goings on Grafton
and on Merrion; where the craic is good,
O’Donaghues is full.
There are footsteps on quay, bridge and street
tapping away like rain on tin,
all servants of masters with somewhere to be or someone to meet
and tired of the cold, and damp.
When the reds and golds of autumn fall
and winter’s knocking at the door,
I miss its feel, on my face,
more like a kiss, than a belt in the gob;
November rain in Dublin.
I once breathed, this self-same air,
I felt as they feel, I lived as they live,
But alas, am a shadow now,
a ghost if you will
haunting these streets,
unseen by all,
unfelt by most.
There are stories here, oft recounted
and some that will never be told,
for the living a narrative, repetitive perhaps.
But all tales are unique, in the telling.
I wish I could teach them to live in the present,
accept all as gift.
Once gone, it’s the way things felt that you miss,
living in the midst of it;
November rain in Dublin.
I was born in Queensland the fourth of six children, Fourth generation Australian born on my mother’s side who were predominantly of Irish stock who came to Australia post the famine years (for the most part from the counties of Tipperary, Wicklow and Donegal). My father came to Australia from Dublin in the 1950s; his father was raised in Maam Connemara and later in Kilkee County Clare but the Moore family going back were from Kilmorna, later known as Kilmeany near Listowel. His mother, was a Barrett from Ennis, County Clare, that whole family very involved in those troubled years of the war of independence in Ireland. Also just out of interest I was part of a little Folk/Irish trio called Welder’s Dog for 10 years or so, with a brother of mine David and our friend Peter Harris, some of our music is still on YouTube I believe. If you listen to Castle Hill Patriots, that is my Dad singing Boolavogue at the start of that song.
Tinteán 