The Connemara Bus

Oughterard Newsletter June 2012 - Submitted by Matt Molloy

The End of the Line for The Connemara Bus Galway Observer Oct 1964
Gerry D'Arcy
The End of the Connemara Bus Galway Observer Oct 17th 1964
Gerry D'Arcy
The End of the Connemara Bus Galway Observer Oct 17th 1964
Gerry D'Arcy
The End of the Connemara Bus Galway Observer Oct 17th 1964
Gerry D'Arcy

It passes each day down the village street,

Is there any chance of a vacant seat?

There might be now – take the weight of  your feet on the Connemara Bus.

You’ll get to Galway what’ere befalls,

Driving along by the low stone walls;

The women all wearing their bright woolly shawls on the Connemara Bus.

The journey would surely be worth your while;

The yarns and Gaelic would make you smile;

The women discussing the latest style on   the Connemara Bus.

Now baskets of eggs will be perched on   the rack,

You’ll hear the ducks as they quack, quack, quack,

Their yellow beaks sticking out of the sack on the Connemara Bus.

You would certainly know it was market   day,

The chickens cheeping all the way.

We talk about prices as we sway on the  Connemara Bus.

To the city of Galway it goes once a week;

It’s a great excursion so to speak,

With laughing women all rosy of cheek on  the Connemara Bus.

To all newcomers we smile and we nod;

Be careful there of that fishing rod

It’s a grand soft day, so thanks be to God for the Connemara Bus.

 

This song used to be sung by Dingoe on his radio show ‘Take the Floor’ in the 1960s.

 

This page was added on 10/09/2012.

Comments about this page

  • Wow. You really captured it. You will return.

    By Tony O'Connor (22/07/2019)
  • Abrilliant piece of writing , you have captured the place so very well I am very sorry that you say never again , but who really knows what lies ahead for us I wish you long life and health Best regards Declan,

    By Declan Guy (29/05/2019)
  • My father married Mary Halloran of Oughterard. Her uncle was a man called Ferguson. He had been in the Colonial Police in Shanghai. When he came home, he bought a bus and ran it; it was the Connemara Bus.

    By Nick (25/01/2019)
  • Our last trip to Connemara was in July 2016 when we spent a glorious wet week based in Letterfrack. My wife and I then were 81 and we were joined by family and relatives numbering 10 at times. This was our last trip as the drive from Youghal is becoming to long for us. The following lines were inspired by my emotions on our last trip South.

    LAMENT FOR CONNEMARA

    I will not forget you though I shall return no more
    ne’er see again your crystal brooks or your wave sculpted shore.
    Those mountains bleak,majestic,’though carven from the sky,
    the valley lakes reflecting, the clouds slow drifting bye

    I shall not return to Delphi, where the salmon leap and play
    and the murmur of the river seems to steal you cares away,
    the russets,greens and purples,the sparking of the wears
    and you think if ther’s a heaven,you will surely find it here

    Then ther’s a place at Ashley,where the river stops and falls
    and the sound like distant thunder keeps the tourists there enthralled
    while you watch in joyous wonder and a Summer shower descends
    the sun peers through the raincloud to reveal a rainbows end

    I wander on through old Lenane upon the Clifden main
    to see the bog ,the streams,the lakes,the mountains draped in rain
    and there afar on yonder bank an old man wields the slane
    it bleeds my heart to know I’ll never see these sights again.

    That vived patch ’round weathered shack an emerald in the sun
    by wretched men in ancient times from the barren rock was won,
    all day the’d toil just skin and bone to spread peat, lime and s’weed
    and when ’twas done and Spring had come they sowed the precious seed

    Sometimes I think beneath the stars of Connemara lore
    the Joyces the O’Flahertys, the O’Malleys ruled the shore
    brave chieftains all, no man thought small,all men were born free
    then came the foreign nobles to usurp their liberty.

    The clans now fought in unity as they’d never done before,
    those valient men from hill and glen put the saxons to the sword
    the English were in disarray,those violent days of yore
    in their coats of mail they hoisted sail and fled our native shore

    Fine evenings spent just lingering on Letterfrack’s pier and strands,
    a fisherman loads his lobster pots,I yearn to lend a hand.
    A Hooker breasts the ocean waves, it’s red sails steal the wind,
    the sun sets o;er your thousand isles,another day must end.

    Those mystic names remembered as I wandered to and fro
    Carna and Kilkerrin Rosmuc and Costello,
    where the menfolk plied their living in their crafts of cloth and tar
    to feed their hungry children, saught the herring near and far

    where the brave stout hearted women,tense and sleepless
    in the night,
    of the horror that might greet them
    at the dawn of morning light, of the whispers ‘long the headlands
    sea wrecked currach on the shore
    hears the fruit of their foreboding,they would see their men no more

    Though I am grieved to leave you I am glad you’ll still be there,
    in your ruggedness and beauty and your heather scented air
    you’ll fill aching hearts with gladness, you will mend each aching wound
    of the seekers of your solace when your potion the’ve consumed

    As I head back through Oughterard,upon my homeward way,
    I am thinking of the sights and sounds, that blessed my too short stay,
    I am thinking of the weather as it changed from hour to hour
    of the verges of the boreens,ablaze with Summer’s flowers,
    of the mountains dark and brooding,their cascading brooks and burns
    as I drive on quitely weeping, for I know I’ll not return

    By Robert Rock (09/12/2018)

Add a comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.