Here is Epic by Kavanagh, known to a generation or two of Leaving Certificate students. A fantastic poem capturing the unnerving fascination with land in rural Ireland, and as Frank McNally recently opined in The Irishman’s Diary in The Irish Times, a poem that has more than a little relevance to the current bitter disagreement between Pat Kenny and his neighbour…

Epic, by Patrick Kavanagh

I have lived in important places,

times When great events were decided,

who owned That half a rood of rock,

a no-man’s land Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.

I heard the Duffys shouting “Damn your soul”

And old McCabe stripped to the waist,

seen Step the plot defying blue cast-steel

— “Here is the march along these iron stones”.

That was the year of the Munich bother. Which

Was more important? I inclined

To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin

Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind.

He said: I made the Iliad from such

A local row. Gods make their own importance.