My children, what have I given you?

Nothing less than what I received from the centuries.

My genes were programmed to preserve the precious heritage:

Blood of Celts and Normans comingled with

An ancient race in barrow graves in Ireland.

 

Your blood, your bones have the look of these men,

Fashioned long ago in a cool green misty land

Surrounded by the sea.

 

The music of their life is ours to share:

Music born in the rhythms of their world--

The restless white clouds dancing along the ocean winds

In a contradiction of wild movement and lilting grace;

The solitary seagull cries as song;

The soft rain in a steady patter of refreshment;

and

The cycle of fertility for which they wisely

Thanked the warming sun.

 

To learn more about them, and me, and you,

I crossed backover the waters they braved

In a much more perilous time.

I walked the fields they trod in quaint named places

Like Enachbeg and Lenamore.

Singing the songs they sang in all simplicity,

Speaking the proud though dying tongue,

Knowing the comfort of burning turf

Whose smell had filled their senses--

These were my rewards in a labor of love.

 

The story of those whose names we bear

That I have tried to reconstruct

Is my special gift to you.

                                                            -Eileen Mahoney McConnell

 

 

This poem was discovered among the earthly possessions of long-time O Mahony Society member and former Taoiseach, Eileen Mahoney McConnell following her sudden death in 2008.  It is reprinted here with the permission of her daughters.