Old Lil Poem by Francis Duggan

Old Lil is one I always will remember her spirit to me keeps on hovering near
She told me marvellous stories in my young years such stories that a growing boy love to hear,
On Winter evenings we sat around the fire place the burning peat threw out a flickering flame
As she told of the ancient history of our Country that from a distant Land our ancestors came.

She told us that we were not the Aboriginal Irish that the honour to a long extinct race belong
That our ancestors were the invaders and dispossessors but to the dead one cannot say sorry we did wrong,
Our ancestors dispossessed other dispossessors they fought with shield and sword and blood did flow
And many wars have taken place in Ireland since the time of the first Irish thousands of years ago.

The bones of De Danaan and Fir Bolg and Fir Moran under the brown peat bogs of Ireland lay
They fought their bloody wars long before our ancestors the Celts came and their myths and legends still live on today,
She told us of the ancient history of our Country this gray haired woman then eighty years or more
That we are not indigenous to Ireland our people came there from a distant shore.

Through the great woods and bracken hills of Ireland with their huge dogs the hunters tracked the wolf and deer
And legend has it they were noble warriors and they fought bravely in the gap of fear
but they were overpowered by bigger armies and sad to say extinction was their lot
But at least in history their existence is recorded and their myths and legends live and why should they be forgot?

Old Lil she was a wise and a clever woman and she still lives in my memory today
She told me of the indigenous tribes of Ireland and that our people came from places far away
Our ancestors were invaders and dispossessors and to the vanquished any mercy did not show
And the bones of the indigenous tribes of Ireland forever lay under where het and bracken grow.