It Occurs To Me:  A momentary stay against confusion

Much as I’ve used prose in this column for some 25 years…at times of grief and deep reflection, I tend to revert to poetry or ballad.

The great American poet Robert Frost said: “A poem begins with a lump in the throat, a home-sickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment.  A complete poem is one where the emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words.”

How absolutely beautiful…and spot on. Frost also defined poetry as “a momentary stay against confusion”, a definition that is all too relevant in the past week, as family, friends, Ardara town and beyond try to come to terms with Stephen McCahill’s horrific death.

Seamus Heaney picked up on Frost and added: “A poem begins in delight … and ends in a clarification of life - not necessarily a great clarification but in a momentary stay against confusion … “

This poem will be broadcast on Ardara’s Owenea FM during Kevin Dunleavy’s ‘Anything Goes’ programme on Sunday, January 18 at 10am.

Congratulations to Owenea FM who did a beautifully moving tribute piece entitled Stephen McCahill’s Final Journey that you will find on YouTube.

Also, a thousand thanks to CLG Ard an Rátha, whose smooth and efficient organisation of buses to the two-day wake, was commented on by many, and was a credit to Stephen’s beloved GAA. Jim Breslin’s reflections in the church were a masterclass in homage and dignity. 

Stephen: In Memoriam

‘I see you, on that glorious festival afternoon,

Directing the young Guard who is directing traffic,

And I laugh…"Now that’s clout, Stephen!"

Later, under the Johnny Doherty memorial,

As you smiled and said your words of welcome,

Donegal fiddles rising in the Ardara sun, 

It was your turn to laugh, that way you did,

Big shoulders heaving with warmth,

As the ‘Yank’ enquires of you,

“Are you guys celebrating 

A one-armed fiddle player”

You pointed at me…”Ask your man?”

And chortled off into the Corner House.

I would give my right arm, old friend,

To get that double shake hands once more,

I hope Johnny Doherty plays you ‘The Donegal Reel’,

“A good lively one” as he said himself,

As living the lively is what you were about,

Didn’t Tommy Peoples write ‘McCahill’s Reels’?

Get him to rosin that bow too.

Ardara will soldier on, as you would wish,

The King is dead, long live the Kingdom!’

The sculpture of John Doherty at the Diamond in Ardara

                     The Ballad of Rathlin O’Beirne

I read Aoife Gallagher’s poignant piece about the Evelyn Marie trawler tragedy last week, and it brought back many memories. 

2025 and 2026 respectively commemorate the 50th anniversaries of the Evelyn Marie and The Carraig Una disasters. My late father was stationed in Glen at the time, and was involved in the searches.

Michelle Bonner’s father, Paddy, was the skipper on the Evelyn Marie, and as she told the Skipper magazine: “Only two of the men’s bodies were found, my mum went to the funerals and I remember wondering when my daddy’s funeral would be.

"I just wanted daddy to come home…I would have fantasies that he had gone to the US and that he would come walking through the door. Rathlin O’Beirne is a lighthouse island, so I convinced myself the men were staying in the lightkeeper cottages.

“There was no counselling, and there was no evidence as to what had happened. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, women in the community took my youngest siblings into their houses and kept them as the search was going on.

"It was such a generous and supportive thing to do…My mother was a teacher, and she had to pick herself up and go back to work, but she would put us in the car on the weekends and drive north and south of where they were lost in search of pieces of timber.” 

I vividly recall singing this ballad (which reached the ballad final in Listowel Writers Week in 1977) in the old Glenbay Hotel on my return home. 

‘Come all you fishermen, listen to me,

And I’ll tell you a sad tale concerning the sea,

It’s of two trawlers went down without warn,

When they floundered on the cruel rocks off Rathlin O’Beirne.

The waters look peaceful off Glencolmcille,

And the view from Slieve League, sure your eyes it would fill,

But tragedy lurks there beneath the blue swell,

Though it’s heaven to some, for the sailor it’s hell.

                         Chorus 

Rathlin O’Beirne, oh Rathlin O’Beirne,

You’ve taken too many of our fishermen,

Dear God, won’t you listen to Burtonport’s prayer,

Protect and give guidance to those who despair. 

The two boats were torn from the bow to the stern,

And eleven brave men lost at Rathlin O’Beirne,

Now their loved ones live on, but their sorrow and tears,

Will tragically echo for too many years.

Who will forget the doomed Evelyn Marie,

And the five lads on board her who trusted the sea,

But is showed them no mercy, it left none alive,

On that ill-fated night back in seventy-five.

                            Repeat chorus

Fate is a quare thing, it has no respite,

It doesn’t show pity or know wrong from right,

And so, less than two years had passed, when alas,

The second sad tragedy then came to pass.

Who would have dreamed, oh who would have feared?

That, once again, sadness and misfortune neared.

And so, Carraig Una knew not of its plight,

And six of Tir Conaill’s sons perished that night.

                       Repeat chorus

Man’s oldest foe is a treacherous friend,

He gives you a living and hastens your end,

The rocks are his weapon, the island his pawn,

Morning his evening and twilight his daw.

My ancestors sailed to that island of woe, 

To start a new life in a new world did go,

Now it is barren, no creature is seen,

A grave in the ocean where sea angels keen.’

                     Repeat chorus

Should anybody like a copy of the melody I wrote for it as well, just send an e-mail to frankiegalligan@gmail.com.

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                                           ‘Thall agus a bus’

You’re all familiar with the Irish phrase, ‘thall agus abhus’...’here and there’, so forgive the above attempt at a pun which occurred to me when I heard the criticism of Bus Éireann from Cavan councillor Brendan Fay who proposed that the council write to the minister for transport for a “clear and immediate explanation” why people are being left “stranded” by public bus services. He mentioned in particular the 30/X30 Expressway route. So, although it leaves Donegal and goes to Dublin, there is controversy in between as well…’Thall Agus A Bus’ indeed!