Lost Tribe Of The Wicklow Mountains

Lost Tribe of the Wicklow Mountains

I believe in them, so they do exist.

Behind waterfalls. In sunless crevices.

In densest rhodendroned foliage.

On slopes of fluttering shadow and scree.

Nothing I know of,

Apart from these lines,

Speaks of this tribe.

They might be waifs that escaped from The lead-mines.

They might be vagrants who dropped out of ballads and poems.

They might be rebels

Who outran the redcoats

Until the redcoats dissolved.

They might be ravers and wiccans

Who squat in high ruins

Holding thousand day hooleys

Cavorting in roofless great halls.

They might change into foxes in moonlight

And paw through the motorway snow

To scavenge the exurban dustbins.

But, sincerely, this tribe has no patterns.

It fits no descriptions.

Nothing about it - beyond its certain existence - translates:

No reason, no theses, no customs, no goal.

The tribe is my credo.

That’s all.

Strong is my faith.

Strong is my beat.

Strong is my magic.

Strong is my want

& wanting, I rise till

I’m vanishing with them,

Spinning in to a mist

Where I’ll never be spotted

Above Mullaghcleevaun.

It’s so righteous to stray.

It’s so good to abandon.

It’s so just to ascend

With the lost and forgotten

To summits the rooted

Cannot even imagine.

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This is the title poem from my 2014 collection Lost Tribe of The Wicklow Mountains.

It was adapted by Christy Moore for his 2016 album Lily.