Black Shamrock (Shammerdoo): A Poem

By Patrick Slevin

Dermot Healy wrote – ‘We forget what we owe to what we’ve forgotten till we encounter it again out of the corner of the eye, in passing.’ 

Shammerdoo (Seamir Dubh) is a townland near Kilkelly in county Mayo. Its meaning is black sorrel, or shamrock.

BLACK SHAMROCK (SHAMMERDOO)

Image used with kind permission of the Connolly family

I never knew him. Not the black and white

Young man. Not the Kodachrome old. With the 

Good wall behind him and the dog. The face

Ringed with lines like the map of his hill, breezes

From Paul Henry skies. 

Image used with kind permission of the Connolly family

  The grass doesn’t grow

In the mud from Mary Anne’s where he walked

Every day, only cloven prints now outlined

By green dew, and purples and blues clawing 

Out from old stones. 

We search to stoke fires with 

Burnt tongs. 

        Your past and our future collide

In the present behind this barbed wire 

Lock. 

           It reeks of the fields in here.

Old jacket still hanging behind the old 

Door. Springs erupt from the mattress, unslept

And rotted with rust. You say no to opening

The flea ridden hag curtain, the doll’s house

Image: © Patrick Slevin

He built you sits still on the floor. Rain briefly

Cracks on the wrought orange roof but the sleep

In this stead carries on, like all those days

Before. You remind me there was ten of 

Them once fractioned in these three rooms. I 

Stand in a doorway, it comes up to my 

Neck, I almost sit down in his chair for a

Picture, by the damp dresser, by the green

Image: © Patrick Slevin

And red tiles, clinging under the mantel,

Where a flat Christmas card warns about

Turkey, your mother’s handwriting fades in

Those misty old wishes. We both try to 

Say that sweet Irish proverb, under the

White horse and trap, holding it at angles

To the tiny window, 

later we learn 

It reads ‘Made in Japan’. 

    By some leaning

Brown bottles we pick up the tongs and

Think of the fire, the other side of the 

Hill. You sit on the remains, gently, of 

The good wall, for a minute, it all doesn’t 

© Carmel Slevin

Seem that long ago now. I raise the tongs,

Like in Zulu, and we turn in the sun,

Shining over Shammer, treading backwards,

As fields swarm round the Callaghan place.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Text: © Patrick Slevin

Patrick Slevin lives in Stockport. He has been writing poems and stories for many years.

Patrick wrote 'Black Shamrock (Shammerdoo)' for Manchester Irish Writers' event, 'Echoes of Ireland', performed at the Irish World Heritage Centre Manchester on 9 March 2017. 

Who Shall Divide Us: Poem for Somme 100

By Patrick Slevin

The Connaught Rangers was an Irish Infantry regiment of the British Army. Known as The Devil's Own, they fought at Guillemont and Ginchy in the Battle of the Somme. In just over a week's fighting the 6th Battalion lost 407 men and 23 officers. This poem is about the men who fought, lived and died in those French fields. Their company motto was 'Quis Separabit' (Who Shall Divide Us).

WHO SHALL DIVIDE US

All to one side like the town of Ballyvary,

They were eager for that boreen. Once barefoot

Boys, they dragged their boots, ankle deep in slutch

With blistered souls. Smudged lamps hovered like

The townsland stretch but no sleans were slung across

Broken backs. Smoke lingered white, still, in the

Night, as they ached their way forward to ‘The 

Bold Fenian Men’. Sporadic cracks split the

Grey, red punctured skies, they felt the dead crossing

The back of their throats. Dark eyes shouted behind 

Unshaven faces, washed with cold drizzle.

Teeth rattled amongst them like Gerry’s own 

Gun. Crouched, closing eyes, no time for jigs 

Or forty-five, they could have heard the sap, 

if only it grew. In the silence, in 

The seconds, before the whistle blew, frost 

Bitten pale hands clenched un-farmable soil. 

Green hearts and dry mouths weren’t warmed by 

Brave words, they didn’t take bets on who’d be

First to Berlin. As dawn descended, the

Screeching skreel screamed through the high sided gulch.

One banshee’s wail for that Guillemont field.

In formation they stuttered to German 

Alarms, the bodhron halted, no encore was

Called. Emeralds lay scattered, The Devil’s Own jewels.

The harp strings broken, ‘Who Shall Divide Us’

Remained unspoken. The breathing cried

Prayers. Desperate for peace and for home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Text © Patrick Slevin

Patrick Slevin lives in Stockport. He has been writing poems and stories for many years.

To find out more about MIW's Somme 100 Commemoration, please click here. 

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Summer 1979: Poem.

By Patrick Slevin

In 1979 we were holidaying at my aunt's in Ballinamore, Leitrim. On a day trip to my father's home town of Westport we visited a relative's house where there was a picture of the signing of the declaration of the Irish Republic. I was six years old and mistook it for the Last Supper. 

In this poem, it is the journey to a relative's house which is described, as well as the journey my father's emigrant generation took-- and also the relationship second generation Irish have with the home they will never live in but are brought up to believe they are forever connected with.

SUMMER 1979

Brought back for summer headlines before the

Copy warmed, the sixth edition ran

Stories, from another press. Black on white

And black on red, borrowed plates to serve 

The picnic, the temporary Beetle meandered

Under the Eagle’s weary eye. Beyond

McBride’s, beyond the Quay, beyond those

Leitrim two-week lanes. My father took the

Uncle’s chair, a Covey coming back to 

Where he’d kangarooed Brylcreem style, long

Before the Boomtown Rats. All day to look

At Old Head rain and then the favela 

Of the dead, grass swept under tarmac before 

A turkey ran me laps. Outside familiar 

Frames, slurred voices hid by welcome turf,

Strangers disguised as cousins, grandsons

Of the same revolt. We stood as victims 

Of a reclaiming Empire while they just 

Farmed the family acres. Mistaken 

Apostles gazed down on us, rising  

For the last supper. Explanations came  

Thick and fast, inside that room I could have 

Cried and cried. Laughter didn’t ease the pain

Amongst the vow of silence. Cajoled, hair   

Ruffled, amid proclamations of what  

Would you expect? We broke bread together,   

I suppose I was one of them. The  

Collection envelopes had gathered 

Once, in that house where the missed still shone. 

In the slumbered sunset, isolated 

Dreams had long since dimmed. They talked us round 

Whispered routes, of English wakes, of 

Lavery’s next years. Looking out for names 

On maps, exhausted fumes carried fresh goodbyes. 

Down a silent unlit road, looking for 

Directions home, but home was someone 

Else’s house, where we’d never live. Soldiers 

Without much song in our heart. Loaded full 

With heavy salutes. For fallen comrades 

And for us. For the land of heroes gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Manchester Irish Member Patrick Slevin lives in Stockport. He has been writing poems and stories for many years.

The images and text used in this post are © Patrick Slevin except for the image of the 1916 signatories which is in the Public Domain.

Patrick wrote 'Summer 1916' for MIW's commemorative event, '1916: The Risen Word', which was performed at the Irish World Heritage Centre, Manchester on March 10 2016. MIW received the generous support of the Embassy of Ireland for this event.