Sacrifices

by Zoe Jury

Plummeting down the clouds

Aware of my end

It is true what they say

Your life flashes in front of you

Like a mirage

My family, my friends old and new

Was my sacrifice worth it

I questioned it through and through.

The end is nigh

My life stolen 

Fighting for a country 

That will not remember me.

The sacrifice was mine 

My regret is great

My life had meaning 

My life should have been great.

My future robbed my dream shattered.

My regret is great.

Written by Zoe Jury, as part of Poetry as Commemoration workshops led by Terry McDonagh, in Castlerea Community School, Roscommon, in  November 2022. Transition Year students were invited to write a poem in response to Terry McDonagh’s poem ‘My Freedom One Hundred Years Later’, written in commemoration of the War of Independence.