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Today I find myself thinking about Ireland – the wonderful places, people, voices and travelling to Dungarvan from Midleton, in Cork.

Koffee Korner Kafé

Rows of Midleton houses seem to move in 
the crisp, sharp air, like the branches of 100
-year-old trees, bare for winter cold but weighted
- old with wisdom, moving slowly, waving up 

and down, like high galleons majestically 
sailing on the windy ebb and flow. Wide, smooth 
empty ring roads follow estuarine edges 
through emerald fields. Houses-that-all-look-the-same 

estates, industrial cities, port-type wharf 
cranes erect and ready.  The Jack Lynch tunnel 
disappears under water, coastal traders 
above.  Chugging cross-river ferries waltz with 

Titanic cruise-ships. Tenders nudging, budging,
control the dance.  Cobh. Turn-off , road narrows with
stone uprights guiding, bordering ancient foot-
falls way, animal-hoof routes. Rising, riding 

bridges built over ancient wild waterways  
flowing through battlefields and forested hills.
We travel paths that meander seemingly 
anywhere but straight ahead - where we want to 

go. Sideways, byways. Avoiding craters that 
require filling, positioned perilously,
making it fun to drive, swerving here and there 
for tractors. Dungarvan town sleeps in school-time, 

a quiet  waiting-place.  Old bridge spans to Prince 
John’s Castle and fresh new four-stories modern
overlooking calm Brickey’s tidal flow, hides 
more secrets than any one man can know or 

remember. We trod the cobblestones, leaning 
forward in the breeze, audibly aware of 
intoned melodies caught in doorways and cars 
as the courteous cruise with windows down in 

the warmth. Walking through Market Square, holding coats 
close, feeling echoes of Town Centre Seventeen
Hundred.  Butter market, slick with Council men
and Spirited characters in United Irishmen Power.  

Feeling occupation, execution, all 
history held in a narrow staircase, that
oft-painted hidden door to the second floor. 
The Koffee Korner Kafé.  It’s the tenth of 

the tenth in two thousand and two - a six day.  
We’re sitting in this space, no bigger than some
-one’s lounge or front room, they’re called here. Perched high 
on a kitchen chair, we’ve just ordered coffee

and cottage pie from Mary.  I feel Ireland.  
I feel the frustration of a language lost
and beaten away in disgust.  The despair 
of those who take some pride in their mother tongue 

now taught to the young but only spoken at 
home - not in public where judgement rules – except 
here. My untutored ear hears the Viking, sees 
the sail of his ship, hears the memory, lilt

of liquid walls, breaking in rhythm, strange 
but still familiar in tone and melody. 
Often almost indistinguishable to 
the foreign ear, - the heavy brogue – the sound of 

Eire today. We swallow the sweet warmth and wait 
with the town, bracing itself for uniforms 
on the loud hunt for Sherbert treats in exchange 
for brain labour. A no-worries future. No 

famine here. Youth with fresh focus and knowing 
eye on EU opportunities. Techi-haven 
Ireland spawns aggressive enterprise, 
ripe, eager to take advantage in the ‘Now’.

Overseas interests, brash pharmaceutical 
relationship phallus-fixers, expel puffs 
of bottom-line money into grateful small 
country coffers. Tax advantage gateway to 

Europe ‘so t‘is’, set up, employ, fill the cup 
of industry in her village halls. While car
license plates display everyman riches since 
the century turned.  The Little Man gaily

lurches from one wealthy franchise to the next, 
celebrates, independence - Gaelic road names.
I lean closer, strain my ears - listen with pride; 
and relish the sounds of the language of here.


Frances Macaulay Forde © 2002 

Another memory of WATERFORD and HURLING.

#POEM:KoffeeKornerKafe   #IRISHPoems  #FrancesMacaulayForde   #MIDLETONCork  #DUNGARVAN  #IrishNotebook