It’s a dreary stormy winter night
With a watery ghostly moon,
And angry flashes of dark and light,
On the wind from Cahernahoon.
The castle stands against the gale
Now a shrieking howling moan,
Sinister and eerie its whistling wail
Over the fields of Cahernahoon.
The ruin gives barely a tremble
In answer to the wild winds cry,
Where defenders used to assemble,
Now wide open beneath the sky.
Once more they’ll man the turrets
Of the stone built Galway ruin,
But now it will be their spirits,
Against the wind from Cahernahoon.
The stairway is cracked and broken,
Oh there’s sorrow in the gloom,
And in the whispered Irish spoken
On the wind from Cahernahoon.
Some said in the winds bold blast
They used to hear a plaintive tune,
Played on strings of a Celtic harp
On the winds from Cahernahoon.
Will there be ghosts this night
Or death in the fearsome gloom,
Giving the living a chilling fright
From the storm in Cahernahoon?
The sentries cry, “Halt who goes there?
Advance slowly friend or foe”,
But no one replies in the cold night air
From the valley of Knockdoe.
At dawning day the storm abates
All about that old grey ruin,
And the castle ghosts their vigil vacate
In the peace from Cahernahoon.
Edward Coppinger
