Christy Moore
She spent seven days creating the World, the Sun the Moon and the Stars
The Plough, and the Milky Way, then Jupiter and Mars
Then She opened up her rib cage, pulled out a little man
She put him down near Timahoe, that’s where it all began
As to why she picked the Shortgrass God only knows
Life began for the Bord na Móna man without a stitch of clothes
Go forth says she and multiply God mam and I will begod
What better place to start the race then below in the Yellow Bog
Don’t you know he’ll never go
Once he gets his foot half in the door
He’s sound as a bell he’ll work like hell hire him if you can
‘clare to God you’ll never meet the beat of the Bórd na Móna man
At the edge of Tankard’s garden he built a lonely cell
Where he contemplated Limbo, then Purgatory and Hell
With the barbed wire in his Calvin Klein’s the poor man couldn’t sleep
All he had for company was jockey boys and sheep
When he’d converted Moorefield, Raheens and Ballitore
He set sail down the Grand Canal ‘til he came to Lullymore
Where he broke up the Bordellos and smashed the Poitín Stills
Began to bale the briquettes around the Sandy Hills
And don’t you know he’ll never go
Once he gets his foot half in the door
He’s sound as a bell he’ll work like hell hire him if you can
‘clare to God you’ll never meet the beat of the Bórd na Móna man
He opened up the Klondike, and he blazed the Yukon Trail
Crushed grapes in California before Columbus had set sail
He Drank tea on top of Everest before Hillary was born
Blindfold up the North Face, backstroke around the Horn
Way back in the 1960s when the world was facing ruin
The East and West were neck and neck to be first on the Moon
When the Yankee steered his module down on the moon to land
Who was there to hold the ladder but the Bord na Móna man
And don’t you know he’ll never go
Once he gets his foot half in the door
He’s sound as a bell he’ll work like hell hire him if you can
‘clare to God you’ll never meet the beat of the Bórd na Móna man
What more can I say. Growing up we were surrounded by Turf; “cuttin it, footin it, clampin it together, bringing home the turf no matter what the weather” – Luka. Those great black sods would glow in the hearth all the year round, centre point of the Dowling household. Thousands came to harvest the black loam. It fuelled the nation, but like all good things it has (almost) come to an end. I still love to walk the bog.