Cabra History.Com

The Return Visit
by/Tony Gorman

Slowly I walked down the streets of my childhood
Remembering the places where I used to play
Sadly the areas are deserted of children
Only some old folk live there today

I visualise my friends playing games along the pavement
The girls with their skipping reciting their rhymes
The boys with their marbles of harlequin colours
As my mind kept remembering our past childhood times

I hear all voices of the women on doorsteps
Telling of happenings that made up their day
Their menfolk out working in all kinds of weather
With one thing in mind, to earn a day’s pay

And on the green sites they have built ugly factories
Removing the views of the landscapes we had
And houses half built are the signs of recession
The visions we see there would make you feel sad

So I’m walking away from this place I was born in
As its changes don’t figure too well in my heart
But I’ll always remember the good times I had there
But those times won’t return so it’s time to depart

So farewell to the streets and the fields of my childhood
And the ghosts of my friends that roam there today
For I leave with my memories of happier times
As time wait’s for no man and its true what they say

I wrote this poem in 2012 after taking a trip back to Cabra West where I was born.
I had a very happy upbringing and some wonderful friends back then and I suppose I had expected everything to be exactly the same as when I left over forty years ago.
When I was young we had miles of open green fields to play and an open swimming baths where all my friends would meet but sadly that’s all gone now.
I loved all the openness of greenery when I walked over Broombridge on the way to the baths and the Tolka River but developers have changed all that with factories and houses.
One good thing I will always treasure the memories of how it was back in my boyhood days.