Was It Worth It After All?

by Sinéad Griffin

To open your home,

Take risks with your young,

Stay up after hours,

A look-out for fighters?

 

To cook, clean, harbor,

Share meagre rations,

Food that you keep 

For nights such as these,

The children asleep?

 

Three daughters god sent,

Can’t fight for themselves,

To send the oldest to the mountains,

On first aid and dispatches?

 

To believe what was declared,

For women, for girls,

Keep years of silence,

The parish divided?

 

To seek no pension,

In case they’d think 

Any less of you.

 

Reproduced with kind permission of the author. This poem was composed in Poetry as Commemoration workshops held at The Pearse Museum, Dublin, in October 2022. The workshops were led by writer Kevin McDermott.