Moved house again, living behind Black mountain now.
Strange getting to know all the myriad roads round here.
Roads that go everywhere yet nowhere in particular
Wonder on the question, why they were built, then
Remembered they’re the famine roads built between
1845 and 1851 when over a million people died?
The worst famine ever, but the laments of the dying, crying
For succor ignored by Trevelyan Lord lieutenant of Ireland
Decreeing built a road don’t ask where to anywhere will do
70 miles of train line in all the land, but we can’t afford the iron
Plenty of stone, hew it, carry it, lay it in the ground die upon it
Won’t matter to us, our ships sail away every day laden with food
But of course not for you to survive, we the landlords must have profit.
Laissez-faire order of the day, Corn Laws repealed by good liberal men
We take your homes, we take your land, but we will not hold you by the hand
you’re dying from starvation your potato crop blighted by disease.
Today I drive and wonder at all the lives lost to building roads that go
Nowhere in particular and a million people died during An Gorta Mor
The irish for what was the great hunger.
Today I enjoy the sunlight
shimmering upon Lough neagh,
because on any given day
I will be the only person
on the roads going nowhere in particular
