The First of July (28.vii.87)

The undulating plain of Picardy has a district called Santerre,
variously interpreted as sana terra, sancta terra,
but most convincingly as sang-terre,
for its hedgeless fields are sodden with the blood of centuries.
Great cavalry country.

The worst Irish disaster since the famine happened there,
at the hot, sunny start of July, nineteen-sixteen.
The Ulsters perished for The Crucifix, north of Thiepval,
yelling "Up the Boyne" as they went down.
The Twelfth was the First, old style.

In all, that Anglo-German war took
forty-nine thousand, four hundred Irish lives,
and maimed in proportion.
My history book said little or nothing about that.
It was the wrong war.

I found that out, when I went to investigate
a crumbling, rubbish-strewn, weedy, overgrown
memorial in Islandbridge, which brotherly hate
and bitterness had consigned to neglect
and dishonour.

There is a tribe of seagulls on Lambay Island
that scream for every Irish death.
They've been at it for nine thousand years,
since the first landed Irishman drew breath.
Banshees to us all.

The birds cry out for the lot of us,
and they don't wait to ask:
Was he a Teague? Was he a Prod?
If he was a man, it's enough.
If he was a man, it's a lot.