Old famine house of Ireland.

In Ireland there are thousands of old eighteen hundreds famine houses scattered across the land. Each one of these relics tells a story...........

There’s an old famine house by a tree and a brook,
With dark caved in thatch work, and a chimney with a crook.
Its old wooden window frames, once solid, and holding glass,
Hangs from the stonework, the shattered glazing in the grass,
A hearth, capped with oak, stands exactly how it was,
Its soot covered opening, holds rotting rusted pots,
The greenest pea green moss, across the relic richly spanned,
Camouflaging crumbled walls, into the backdrop of the land.

In the daylight it’s some artwork, shaped and moulded over time,
A mix of vivid colours, Mother Nature in her prime,
From afar they come to visit, taking pictures where it stands,
Some eighteen hundreds history, entombed into the land,
It sings its silent memories, of the tragedy and the blight,
The down fall of the countrymen, and sad stories of their fight,
Around there lays the evidence, of how hard, life must have been,
Hand plough and sickle in the weeds, and broken washboard in the stream.

When the darkness falls around, the picture changes face,
Colour turns to black and grey, with lurching ghostly shapes,
Beauty fades to emptiness, filled with threatening shadows,
Some say the family’s spirits haunt, from graves that are so shallow,
No one dares to go a calling, for it’s the lost souls time and place,
Not care do they to see, the look of suffering on their face,
The night time, is for the lost folk, to come and visit, when it suits,
The day time, is for their ancestors, for remembering their roots.

Published 2010/05/17