The High Bog Road To Gneeves Poem by Francis Duggan

Like ladder to the galaxy climbing upwards to the sky
The road to Gneeves bogland is narrow, rough and high
But from May to September much traffic up and down
To and from the flatlands that border Millstreet Town.

From early May and onwards in warm days of the Spring
The shlauns and peat cutting machines already in full swing
Families from Millstreet Parish in the bogland every day
Making fire fuel for the Winter the Winter cold and gray.

In Gneeves lonely bogland one morning in the Spring
I heard a little skylark above the bracken sing
He sang above the low clouds as upwards he did fly
And the music from his tiny heart re-echoed in the sky.

What's not seen as significant and what others see as small
To me seems quite important and I can still recall
The sweet song of the skylark and the scent of freshly shlauned peat
In Gneeves mountain bogland in the Parish of Millstreet.

The Aussie fellow said to me mate you have got it wrong
Your memories are of a high bog road and of a skylark's song
Forget your boyhood memories mate your past forever dead
And think about your future and the days that are ahead.

Don't take from me my memories they are all that I have left
Of my very happy boyhood and without them I'd feel bereft
And the high bog road to Gneeves I see it every day
And I hear the skylark singing o'er the bracken far away.