THE IRISH GOLDRUSH

GOLD  was the vision of Etty Scott,

of Viking treasure that time forgot,

stashed by the Danes in their dash to flee,

under a stone beside the sea.

Etty! Enchantress of beauty and bravado,

Scottishly crooning of an Irish Eldorado,

lured the Dalkey quarriers

down to the fateful shore as faithful warriors,

enraptured, captured, tied like the tide in tune

to the magic of the moon.

 

She dreamed her dream of the bags of gold,

did fine girl Etty, her black eyes bold.

Like Boadicea. Or Germaine Greer.

Cruella. Nigella.

Like Greta Garbo in Queen Christina,

Or Thatcher, Thunberg or Messalina.

Queen Maeve or Good Queen Bess,

demanding the answer, YES!

​

Go for Gold! Cried the Scotman's Daughter.

It lies beneath the Milk and Water

Company's Long Rock. Only believe in my dream.

Awa' with your milk and water.

I offer ye wine and cream.

Are you with me, Pat? I AM, said Pat Byrne,

utterly under her spell. WHAT ABOUT ME?

says Pat Kavanagh, AMN'T I A PAT AS WELL?

​

Thirty days of dirty digging, day and night,

with pick and poky stick and gelignite.

Not one of the thirty diggers ever doubting

she was right.

When Etty raise her tawny, brawny  arm,

every manjack was banjaxed by her charm.

Until the black, climactic night in Pat Byrne's garden,

unknown to Byrne himself who, deaf to failure,

was down at the Big Dig halfway to Australia.

​

Back in his garden, crunching his turnip beds,

a bunch of cynical, clinical, hardened Meds:

medical students, embryonic physicians,

destined to take up golf and obstetrical positions,

were coating two fearful cats

with incandescent phosphorus,

then stuck 'em in a sack and snuck 'em down

to Dalkey Sound, to Ireland's Bosphorus.

 

CATS OUT OF BAG! The fiery felines flew zig-zag

from crag to crag, and every digger fled,

In Holy Dread, as Pat Byrne said,

Of the livid, lurid, luminous Living Dead!

Those Medics pricked the Dalkey Bubble.

Our tale is almost told. For all that trouble,

a stack of rubble, never a speck of gold.

Poor Etty! Never to be a Paul (or Pauline) Getty,

or visit the Serengeti, or even eat spaghetti,

passed away; but, strange to say,

her hairy excavators got in a way their pay,

for their squatters' plots of empty rocks,

they sold as housing lots for pots and pots and pots,

for overflowing crocks of Fairy Gold!

  

​

​

​

​

​