ANAC CUAN by Anthony Raftery

Today is World Poetry Day -- Proclaimed by UNESCO

Here is a version of the lyrics in English (and from the source in Irish).

If my health is spared I'll be long relating,
Of the boat that sailed out from Anac Cuan,
And the keening after of mother and father,
As the laying out of each corpse was done.
Oh King of Graces, who died to save us,
It was a small affair but for one or two,
But a boat-load bravely on a calm sailing,
Without storm or rain to be swept to doom.

The boat sprang a leak and left all those people,
And frightened sheep out adrift on the tide,
It beats all telling what fate befell them,
Eleven strong men and eight women died.
Men who could manage a plough or harrow,
For to break the fallow or scatter seed,
And the women whose fingers could move so nimbly,
To spin fine linen or cloth to weave.

Young boys they were lying where crops were ripening,
From the strength of youth they were borne away,
In their wedding clothes for their wake they robed them,
Oh King of Glory man's hope is vain.

May burning mountains come tumbling downward,
On that place of drowning may curses fall,
Full many the soul it has left in mourning,
And left without hope of a bright day's dawn.
The cause of their fate was no fault of sailing ,
It was the boat that failed them the Caislean Nuadh,
And left me to make with a heart that's breaking,
This sad lamentation for Anac Cuain.

 I ran across this thesis on Blind Raftery, a direct ancestor of my great grandfather.