Tipperary poet wins Poem for The Ploughing

Tipperary poet wins Poem for The Ploughing

A poem by Tipperary man Patrick Moran has beaten well known verses by Patrick Kavanagh and Seamus Heaney to be named Poem for The Ploughing.

While most of the attention at Rathiniska was on the artisan food stalls, the machinery, livestock and other exhibits, visitors at the ploughing championships have also been busy naming their favourite verse to commemorate Europe's biggest outdoor festival.

A search was launched by the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Denis Nulty and a final shortlist of six poems was then put up for a public vote at the Ploughing Championships over the past three days.

Tipperary poet Patrick Moran

Despite being in such exalted company, Bulbs by Tipperary man Patrick Moran was deemed the favourite.

"It is a real honour to be included on the short-list with names like Kavanagh and Heaney and I am very happy that my poem has been named Poem for The Ploughing", said Moran, who hails from the village of Templetuohy in Tipperary.

Bulbs was written ten years ago in honour of his father.

"My father was a keen gardener and I'm afraid I was a reluctant gardener. I remember turning over the spade and unearthing bulbs and memories of my father and what kind of man he was came back to me".

The shorlisted poems were:

I Will Go With My Father A-Ploughing by Joseph Campbell

Digging by Seamus Heaney The Follower by Seamus Heaney

To the Man after the Harrow by Patrick Kavanagh

Bulbs by Patrick Moran

The Farmer - Verona Pentony

Bulbs

It was (I dreamt) years from now.

My father had long since died, and memories

of him, so vivid once, were fading:

the man whose deft touch could rouse

a sluggish fire; whose fingers knew

the inner workings of clocks and watches;

but most, the inveterate sower of seed,

so indulgent he’d let stray lettuces

or spuds flourish in a drill of carrots;

who, even when stooped with age, could still wonder:

Where do all the weeds come out of?

This stubborn man whose gifts I didn’t have,

whose paths I wouldn’t follow.

*

So there I was, standing

on a neglected patch of ground,

not knowing why: Instinct? The lengthening

evenings? A bird’s lingering notes?

Or my wife’s incessant pleading?

And I didn’t seem to know what to set:

Flowers? Shrubs? Organic vegetables?

I was just getting down to work,

turning scraws over with a spade,

when I came on them, snug as landmines: bulbs

he’d planted years before, still waiting there...

*

Innocent, helpless, strangely eloquent.

Patrick Moran