Thurles Information

Barry’s Bridge, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.

Bridge Of Memories.

© Author & Poet Tom Ryan.

By the mossy bridge at the ford,
Where tired cattle drink,
My folks were all around me there,
Or so I like to think.

Near my mother’s house of old
This lovely spiritual truth,
Oh, joyous, warm abode
Of a dear and distant youth.

Midst the flowers and the scents of the summer air,
I felt, oh, I feel, they are still yet there,
My gentle folks of the mountain land,
By the sparkling waters, on either hand.

We brought the cart to the bridge below,
To cool the iron-rimmed wheels,
With a tired old jennet I once loved so,
Who’d gifted me a thousand thrills.

We bathed our little children’s feet,
Splashed till joyous hours were done,
All day playing in sun and heat
Hearts and heaven in unison.

Midst the flowers and the scents of the summer air,
I felt, oh, I feel, they are still yet there,
My gentle folks of the mountain land,
By the sparkling waters on either hand.

Where magic through cool water flows.
And foxes, hares run fast and free
Oh, fluttering now my heart it goes
So carefree now in memory.

I felt, I feel, and will not yield,
My people love e’en yet this field;
And we who live and they now gone,
Are still, in love, in unison.

And all around me in the air
Hearts that love and hearts that care,
In this sweet place I loved when young
Happy my flesh and blood among.

Midst the flowers and the scents of the summer air,
I felt, oh, I feel, they are still yet there,
My gentle folks of the mountain land,
By the sparkling waters, on either hand.

End

Tom Ryan, “Iona”, Rahealty, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.

The Visit

© Author & Poet Tom Ryan.

“Her old eyes sparkled to salute our arrival
At the quiet chalet, where she in her ninetieth year and alone,
Was captive, held by time.
The laughing good natured girl held her in gentleness,
Directing her faltering steps to the waiting Nissan Sunny.
Earlier, by the embers of a turf fire dying,
She had indifferently sipped the lukewarm tea,
Watching in silence the ancient chestnut trees outside
Yield their sap to the ways of time,
Old and gnarled and bare.
She had prayed with her friends ‘The Rosary’,
For himself now years long gone,
And herself and all she loved,
And the good days, too, thank God,
As she, frail-fingered again and again
Old Holy Communion photographs.
Black and white and musty-dusty, faded now
Sweet in their wistfulness,
Like a long lost summer of youth.
On the shelf by the bed and the fire
The Virgin’s statue in stone.
Consolation.
In the emptiness of time.
Fading now the ever retreating memories
Hard days slaning the stubborn bog with himself,
Billycan tea in the warm, sweet meadows of high summer,
The giggles and laughter of a crossroads ceili do
By the Devils’ Bit hill in Barnane.
The joy of a long and dignified togetherness
In a quiet intimacy,
Things to sugar the tea of thought with now.
Her niece in the Nissan Sunny, she brightly felt,
Could smile like the sun and her mother.
Ah, little it mattered where they’d go,
‘Twould put a homely, decent hour or two
Between herself and the loneliness.”

End.

Tom Ryan, “Iona”, Rahealty, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.