This video features Orla-Peach Power reading Denis O’Sullivan’s ‘Glengarriff’. The poem is displayed below it.
I.
Glengarriff! What a host of treasured memories
Your name in future will recall to me,
But in thought I live again amidst the beauties
Of your hills and vales and blue encircling sea.
II.
I shall never quite forget that summer’s evening,
When your beauty burst on us surpassing fair,
As we sauntered down the lanes of crimson fuchsia
Which grows in rich profusion everywhere.
III.
And out beyond amidst the fairy islands
Where the heron and the cormorant have their nests,
And the Rhododendrons flourish in perfection
And tiny coves lay sheltering in the west.
IV.
Then later, when the moon in fullest splendour
Shed her soft and radiant light across the bay,
Through the trees so still and peaceful down below us
The beautiful blue pool in silence lay.
V.
And your people with their kindly words of welcome,
So generous in their wish to entertain,
Where’er we went, we found it all around us,
A warm and pleasant memory to remain.
VI.
I may travel wide and far perhaps in future,
I may travel beauty spots just as fair,
But the memory of Glengarriff’s charms will linger,
With the gems of natures beauty hidden there.