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Fr. Sean Mc Manus’s mother –
Celia Mc Mullen-Mc Manus – was
born on Carn Mountain, in the
parish of Kinawley, Co.
Fermanagh. The mountain home is
now deserted – but not
forgotten. It is commemorated in
verse by Sean’s first cousin,
Patrick Maguire, son of Maggie
Mc Mullen-Maguire , a sister of
Celia.
In 2002 -- inspired by showing
the old Mc Mullen ruins on Carn
to long lost cousins from
America – Patrick crafted a
moving poem (part elegy, part
paean), “The Carn Lintel”, the
only thing left standing:
The Carn Lintel
by Patrick Maguire
(Thoughts on a
visit to Carn with American
cousins. August 20, 2002)
Tired and hungry fields,
receding, as the gorse reclaims
its space,
Our ancestral tracks have
vanished, footprints faded
beyond trace.
Vengeful bramble, angry briar,
that for long were held at bay,
Boldly colonise the meadow where
my mother trampled hay.
Where the spud proliferated,
with the cabbage and the corn,
Greedy rushes are competing with
the thistle and the thorn.
And the path up to the bogland
purple heather now conceals
Where, in sunshine, neighbours
dandered with their donkeys and
their creels.
Scalloped thatch has long since
fallen on this little house
that’s died.
Still the naked walls are
standing…sadly… strangely
dignified.
Now the chimney lies in rubble,
choking up the cold fireplace,
And a rusty crook’s protruding
from the ruins of the brace.
Nettles, tall as were my uncles,
stretch up from the strewn floor
And yet, the stubborn lintel
sullenly protects the door.
Persevering through the decades,
resolutely standing fast,
Tireless, it maintains the
portal; guards this entrance to
our past.
Underneath its rugged toughness
life was played across the
years.
Here were scenes of hope and
heartache; joy and laughter;
anguished tears.
Here were cameos enacted in a
drama of the strife
Of a family for survival - in
the tragedy of life.
O’er this threshold, long
enduring, once a girl was borne,
with pride,
By a young man – my grandfather
- celebrating his new bride.
Was that moment lost, I wonder;
had it gone beyond recall,
When, by hand, my sister led
him, in his dotage, lest he’d
fall?
In the years intervening, sons
and daughters travelled through;
Maggie, Celia, Katie, Alice,
Terence, James, Pat, Felix,
Hugh.
From beneath this guardian
lintel, each first looked upon
the world.
Back through here they ran for
refuge, as their early lives
unfurled.
Hence they went as carefree
youngsters; off to school… to
church…to dance;
Later, forth to work and
marriage, and to fight a war in
France.
Here the ceilidhers were
greeted, welcome of a winter’s
night.
(Others came, though uninvited,
black and tanned, at dawn’s
first light.)
Round this doorway neighbours
huddled; men came in, with
voices low,
Muttered, “Sorry for your
trouble”, on an August evening,
long ago.
So the family decremented, till
but one was left to cope,
With the cross of aged parents
and the withering of hope.
Then the long and lonely
winters, in the turf and tilley
light;
One alone where there’d been
many, in the cold and silent
night.
Till the solitude and shadows
sapped, at last, the will to try
And the fire was raked forever
and the house was left to die.
Now, some forty years later,
ruined; derelict; and yet
There remains a sense of life
here; this is not a place of
death.
What has pulled us here
together, some who’ve never met
before?
What has drawn us from the
distance back to this, our
common core?
Are there threads we are unaware
of; bonds we do not comprehend?
Links that cross the generations
and our simple thoughts
transcend?
Is there something here of
others; those who left long,
long ago?
Susan, Catherine and Bessie;
Jemmy, Terry, Hugh and Joe?
Underneath this granite lintel
they too passed in younger days;
Trod the tracks that are no
longer; moved along those
mountain ways.
Here they loved and laughed
together, whispered secrets,
hopes and fears,
In the days before New Zealand;
long before the Boston years.
Yes, the golden thatch has
perished; stones, once white,
are hushed and grey.
Now the stacks of weeds and
briars stand where once were
turf and hay.
As we have spread across the
world, nature has regained its
space
But, beneath this Carn Lintel,
here we have yet a sense of
place.
Patrick Maguire
County Fermanagh
December 2002
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