Lament for the Son of Usnech

When sun sets down the Mountains of Kerry and follows the River Shanon to the mighty Atlantic, the Emerald Isle shines to the sparkle of the myriad of stars and the rays of the moon. Along the plains filled with peatbogs and heaths magic makes its appearance in the cool of the evening; sweet smelling grasses sway to and fro with the spirit of the faeries. Little people raise themselves from the mosses and lichens and go along their busy ways in gathering the gold for their crock near the sparkling coloured rainbow; the spirits whisper their count in the Gaelic tongue of old.

The peaceful evenings with brilliant lit heavens, at one time in the recent past, shone on a lantern lit cottage in the county of Limerick. Blind Eamus McNaught had his little cottage which he shared with his devoted wife Mary Ellen; a woman faithful to him even when sight was deprived. A bonny bairn of a lass was her gift to him and she cared for the both of her charges equally.

Eamus McNaught's sight was in the soft touch of the pretty features and red hair of his Mary Ellen; his lips accepted the full warmth of his wife's affection, and her hug with her slim and gracious body added its charms. He took pleasure in the sound of the cooing and gurling of chubby little Daphne. The two wonderful creatures were a blessing in his life, and he never forgot in the Sunday mass to offer his prayers for them.

Eamus McNaught's gift to his Mary Ellen and little Daphne was the tunes played on his fiddle and sung by his tenor voice in the cool of the evenings. The playing on the strings was an inheritance from his father to his younger son, and Eamus's rendered songs had the blessed semblance of his sweet-voiced mother. Both the father and mother of Eamus McNaught lived the remainder of their golden years in the loving care of the Sisters of Charity in their convent nearby.