I remember it as though
it was yesterday, not eight years ago,
the evening cool, the street
crowded, the pubs along High Street:
Freeney’s, The Front Door,
Tigh Neachtain, Sonny Molloy’s
still warming up as the night
tightened it grip, the Guinness
washed the taps, filled the pints
and people sat along the street
some with guitars, one a bouzouki,
and all with a song which
you had no option, voice or none,
but to join, for on this night,
every night, in this place
you were Irish, like it or not.
I felt the stirring, a sudden joy
and only later did I learn
that I grew from the soil
up north of Galway City,
in the fourth green field,
for I know now I am
however far removed,
an Ulsterman from Antrim.