The Limerick Writers’ Centre annual bus tour of West Limerick and the Maigue Poets Country takes place Friday 16th August, departing from Dolans on the Dock Road at 11.30 pm.
Booking essential as numbers limited to 25. €15.00 per person. To book email limerickwriterscentrte@gmail.com or Tel 087 2996409.
Tour guide Micheal Liston.

This year we travel to Adare and on to Knockfierna where we visit the poets trail, then on to Kilmallock and Croom one of the must stops of our trip. The home of The Maigue Poets and their Courts of Poetry, it was here that Sean O Tuama sent out his famous Warrants calling all the poets of Munster and beyond to gather, keep alive and celebrate the ancient Gaelic culture of the fili and the bards. Here also is where he composed his famous ditty about collecting debts owed to him from his inn-keeping business and which solicited such a rancorous response from his fellow poet Aindreas Mac Craith.

O Tuama’s verse begins:

I’m a person who daily sells drinks
And my company sets to high jinks
But I say, by the way
If someone fails to pay
It’s my loss when the account sinks

Mac Craith’s savage reply begins:

You’re a man who sells drink by the splash
Your brandy and ale are a mash
All who drink your bad booze
Their memory lose
And their brains are confused in a hash.

The rift between them was never healed in their lifetime but now some members of the Croom community plan a commeration of O Tuama and Mac Craith and the rest of the Maigue Poets by erecting a statue in Croom. The location has been provisionally approved and Croom now hopes to capitalise on the renewed interest in our ancient Gaelic heritage, encapsulated by groups such as The Maigue Poets. It is hoped to have the statue erected by this time next year. The bus tour will visit both the spot where Sean O Tuama is buried and the proposed site of the statue plus other areas of interest in Croom.

www.limerickwriterscentre.com