The hounds of Ulster

Were set loose once again

Upon each other;

The wolves of Cork and Kerry 

And Albion and Tipperary following

As reinforcements to the hunt,

The hunt that marked the 

Sides of buildings in the 

Wind-whipped North, the

Factory-driven North, the

Bog-land North, marked it

With red and black,

Spray-paint of masks and guns,

And “Up the ‘Ra!”

And “Prepared for peace -

Ready for war.”

Táin bó cúailnge yet again,

The raiding-party for the bloody cow

Whose horns scraped the sky

And brought the gods a-looking

For where this violence began.

Táin bó cúailnge yet again,

That heifer stolen once more

By the orange and the green,

The white between completely

Forgotten in the slough of time.

The Daghda swung his great club

To split Ireland in twenty-six and six,

And swung it again to bring

The Irish and the Irish

To bear upon each other;

With broken glass and car-bombs,

And the backs of taprooms

Where they thought the 

Republic of nineteen-sixteen

Lay in hiding. I can hear her still.

In Belfast, Emer calling 

With her sweet voice from the hills,

“Do not let my people suffer

More than they already have.”

In plague and famine and war, and now

The muddy dregs of Troubles

Trickling down the streets

Of this, the thrice-broken city.

And Cú Chulainn heard 

His wife thus in agony proclaim,

Before he cast his lot into the sea.