On Achill Island

Gold cherry

By Turlough

Sun, 01 Mar 2026
  • 247 reads
14 comments
 

 

On Achill Island

 

From the pile of turf where the cock crows

Daily to remind us we’re alive

I see an emerald land painted in oils

Preserved since High Kings ruled

Like the body in the bog

She’s a pagan who trusted in God

And prayed to His mother

Did she live all the days she was due

And die in good spirit

With the hounds of Finn at her heel

Or was she filched in the night by Fear Doirich?

 

My heart for so long as black as the soil

Stained by blood and blight

Is eased since you rose from your sick bed

After eight hundred years

Your houses still carcasses broken apart

Ransacked by bailiffs, dark men of their Crown

While hillsides bled with flame

And crows grew fat

On pickings from bodies grown thin

I’d wept eight hundred tears

For the pitiful children of the Gael

That clung to the edge of the world

Beyond Achill’s lonely dunes

 

Slievemore girls float by like clouds

Their clothes the grey of Mayo skies

Each a ballad waiting to be sung

Each a field rose waiting to be picked

At a crossroads dance on a summer night

Each the child of one mother with ten

Each scrutinised by Kelly the priest

With his worn-out rosary

And his stained-glass eyes

 

My Granda played the penny whistle

Where Micky Patten’s blaze warmed

And crackled to bring in the crowd

Echoes of jigs and reels linger still

On the salty breath of Atlantic winds

The silent people talked all night

While poitín sang, his tired eyes danced

Until his calloused peat-brown hands

Stretched down to the empty hearth

And those winds sighed softly

And the door swung closed

 

My fingers now as black as the soil

Stained by blood and blight

As they cling to Ériu

On the shore of Lough Keel

There I’ll die in good spirit

With the hounds of Finn at my heel

 

Image: I don’t have a photograph of Lough Keel on Achill Island, but here’s one I took of the lough at Glanmore in West Cork.

 

 

 

Certificate 12
Poem
Poetry in Commotion
Surreal
Travel
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by marandina on

"Echoes of jigs and reels linger still

On the salty breath of Atlantic winds.."

I might describe a vast, sprawling poem like this one as an epic.

Many lines to admire and written with authority and skill.

My kinda poem.

Superb. 

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Awww, thanks Paul. I love kind words and yours are always very kind, as well as encouraging.

And many thanks for the cherries too!

Turlough

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

brilliant imagery in this Turlough - a good way to see in the new month!

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Thank you IPFN and Chesteetah Baba Marta – Happy Grandmother March!

Today is a big day of celebration in Bulgaria.

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

Atmospheric and haunting.  I can imagine Sinéad O'Connor singing this.

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Oooh Kat, I’m flattered.

If I’d only heard Sinéad O' Connor say my name I’d have been on a cloud for the rest of my life. I saw her perform live on stage once at the 2014 WOMAD festival near you. She was brilliant. I can’t say she was my inspiration to write this poem but she was for another I wrote a while back. It’s called Her Troubles.

Poitín is indeed homemade whiskey but when you’ve had a drop of it, it makes every organ in your body sing as it brings the place to life in a way that a drink like a vodka and tonic never could. Our rakia over here has a similar effect.

But now I’m going to make a cuppa.

Turlough

Submitted by insertponceyfre... on

This is our social media Pick of the Day!

Please share if you enjoyed it too

 

Submitted by Turlough on

That's lovely news. Thank you very much IPFN. You've made my Baba Marta.

Turlough

Submitted by Jane Hyphen on

Wonderful poem, Turlough. The the wild elements of the Emerald Isle and also the history, the pain, rich culture entwined with the natural landscape. I'm sure you could write a hundred verses on Ireland and then more. 

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Hello Jane.

There is indeed a lot I could write about Ireland and Irish people and Irish things I’ve experienced whilst outside of Ireland. But also Bulgaria. And I lived in England most of my life.

So many ideas, so little time!

Many thanks to you for reading and for your comment. It’s greatly appreciated.

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

About a week ago I took out a library book by Claire Keegan called 'Walk The Blue Fields'.  I've just started it tonight, and the first line of the first story is - "It was three o'clock in the morning when she finally crossed the bridge to Achill".  The whole story is set in a writers' retreat on the island.

Until I read your poem today I'd never heard of Achill.  Spooky or what.  

 

 

Submitted by Turlough on

Achill (or Oileán Acla) is only an island by the skin of its teeth as there’s a short road bridge crossing Achill Sound (the one Claire Keegan mentioned in the book) but that bridge is the only way in and out and it’s only been there just over a hundred years. It is indeed spooky that you started reading it the day I mentioned it here. I’d be interested to know what you think of the book when you’re finished with it.

And Achill’s a spooky place because so many people were starved there, and there are still traces of that terrible time all over the island. There’s other history too, such as one of the tower houses of Grace O' Malley (or Granuaile) the sixteenth century pirate queen who once sailed to London to meet Elizabeth I with whom she negotiated in Latin because it was their only common language. But it’s gorgeous, despite the wild weather coming in from the Atlantic. Gielty’s Bar in the village of Dooagh is the most western bar and restaurant in Europe.   

It's also part of the Mayo Gaeltacht, one of the districts of Ireland where Irish is recognised as the first language.

Have you seen the film The Banshees of Inisherin? Most of that was filmed on Achill.

It’s one of my favourite places in Mayo, which is by far my favourite county in Ireland, which is by far my joint-favourite country in the world.

Turlough

Submitted by GlosKat on

I was reading it at midnight in bed, and it really was a spooky coincidence.

It's actually a book of short stories.  The first story, set on Achill, is called 'A Long and Painful Death'

I'm having a Claire Keegan binge at the moment, having only heard of her three months ago when 'Antarctica'  came into the charity shop.  As she only (so far as I can see) writes short stories or novellas, I can whizz through one of her books in a day (or a night).  So far I've done Antarctica, So Late in the Day, Foster, Small Things Like These, and am three stories into Walk The Blue Fields.

Loved all of them.  All heartbreaking. If what she has to say about the lot of Irish women and children, especially in the country, is true, then god help them.  

Not seen the film but I'll keep an eye out.  Some Colin Farrell films I like (Ondine in particular) but some I don't.

 

Submitted by Turlough on

The Banshees of Inisherin is a peculiar film which some people say is mad and totally unbelievable. But we were on holiday in Mayo when it was released. We saw it at the cinema in Westport so, as we recognised so many of the film locations, it felt like we were paying €10 to spy on the neighbours. The local people we spoke to said that the film went a long way to explain the mental health problems caused by the isolation and loneliness of island life. And it has some great character acting in it.

I’d say I’d look out for Claire Keegan but there’s little hope of finding anything in Bulgaria.

I’d never heard of Ondine before. I thought perhaps you meant The Onedin Line. But any road, I did the google thing and discovered it was filmed in the village of Castletownbere in West Cork, just a few kilometres from the lough in the picture I posted with my Achill poem. We stayed in a cottage near there on another trip to Ireland. On the cover of the wonderfully funny travel book, McCarthy's Bar by Pete McCarthy's, the photograph is of the McCarthy’s bar in Castletownbere. We went in for a pint (just the one mind) and it was great to see the place almost exactly as the author had described it.

And now, Madame Priyatelkata and I are locked in a heated discussion over whether to return to Mayo or West Cork for our desperately needed next trip. We’d already pencilled in plans for Glencolmcille in south Donegal.

Turlough