Aodhan of Clonard

[Jimmy O'Connell]

Aodhan* of Clonard
Of a winter’s dawning the town land he entered;
a stranger who had both the writing craft

and knowledge of bees that was uncommon;
one Patron’s day he took himself a local woman,

and for thirty years he lived among us,
sold at the fair, raised two sons; attended the Mass.

Was it true that he once slept by Finian’s transept,
worn the habit, and then, one day, just left,

walked through Rattin bog and never returned?
There is no gravestone in Kinnegad or Clonard

to commemorate the life of this particular man
whose name may have been Aodhan.

*Aodhan: pronounced ay-gone