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Donall Dempsey Feb 2023
CAILLTE(LOST)


what I miss most
(I know its ridiculous)
but


the biting into
an apple...its crunch
the sudden spurt of juice


rain on my face
snow on the tip
of my tongue


the little curl
that always tucked itself
in behind her ear


the sound of her
footsteps
getting near


God I hate
being a ghost
it's no life


thought death
would be the end
of it


but here I am
in this
whatever....this...is


I am
haunted
by the living
Hannah McMullan Nov 2013
In my dream the other night,
I first heard a panicked mot's voice:

"Is me, mo ghile mear!
Cathain a thoicfaidh tú abhaile chugam?"


When light then entered my eyes,
I saw a young woman hunched o'er a table

She writing, quill in hand, to her man.
Like a ghost I hovered o'er her.

I saw the year, 1745
The year of the Jacobite.

I blinked my eyes
And my world went black.

Once opened again, I saw that time had passed
And a tear-stained letter lay on the desk.

Mo leannán fionn, the letter read
Tá me i ndeoraíocht.
Is ár bprionsa caillte.
A stór, mo ghrá thú, ach
Níl riamh feicfidh mé tu arís.


When I awoke that morn,
The ghosts of the lovers haunted me.

I pitied that mot, who lost her love forever to exile
I pitied that cove, exiled from his love forever.

Though only shades, their story
Is from the dawn of time.
1745 was the year of the Glenfinnan Uprising, one of the various Jacobite Uprisings, during which Prince Charles Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charles/ár bprionsa [our prince])--a Catholic--attempted to claim the thrones of England, Ireland, and Scotland.  This uprising became the focus of many songs, both in Gaeilge and Gaidhlig.

— The End —