A Woman From Knocknagree Poem by Francis Duggan

In the sunshine a blackbird is singing in the front garden
on a birch tree
And she lives far south of Duhallow and her old home place of Knocknagree
A widow in her mid to late forties her brown hair is fading to gray
But don't tell her that she is ageing or that she has known a better day.

Her only offspring her son has a wife and young daughter a brown haired blue eyed girl of four
And she has not been back to Duhallow and it has been five years with a score
Since she waited with her tearful parents with her suitcase by the cottage door
For the taxi she had booked that would take her to the railway station in Rathmore.

Her parents have gone to the reaper the reaper who will claim us all
And though she feels happy in Murrumbeena some good memories she can recall
Of her younger years in Duhallow when she lived in the cottage by the rill
By the high road that led to the village of old Knocknagree on the hill.

She won't be going back to Duhallow not even for a holiday
For she likes it in Murrumbeena and in this suburb of Melbourne she'll stay
And she still has with her that distinctive accent and suppose she will always be
A woman from a distant Parish who migrated from Knocknagree.