If Yeats attended an Argentine Irish Gathering
I saw their flocks drift slow across the tawny plain,
yet in their hearts the drumming hills of green remained.
The ombú stood, stout sentinel in fierce refrain,
a silent kin to Celtic roots the soul sustained.
A hundred years and more have passed, yet still I see—
the lilt of Éire in the dance, the gaze, the song.
The green flame flickers in their lineage silently,
through voices mingled where two worlds belong.
No marble halls, but chapels shaped by mate’s steam,
and dusk remembered through an Irish dream.
Even here, where condors roam and gauchos ride,
the soul keeps watch from Time's uncharted side.
They walk between two spells: this southern star
and Erin’s mist that lingers in each scar.
As if the blood obeyed some ancient rite,
to carry turf and myth through immigrant night.
So let no bard lament the vanishing of lore—
the harp still sings beneath this foreign shore. 2
A Raucous Ode to the Irish-Argentine, in the Style of Brendan Behan
Sure, ‘twas a wild wind blew us here, lads,
From Dublin’s muck and Galway’s rain,
Across the roarin’ seas we came,
With a pint in hand and a rebel’s pain.
We swapped the Liffey’s damp embrace
For the Pampas’ sprawl, this wide-open place,
Where the gaucho’s yell and the tango’s sway
Met the Irish heart that won’t fade away.
Oh, the public houses roared with cheer,
Where the porter flowed and the craic was dear.
We sang of Éire, of fights and tears,
While the mate gourd passed through a hundred years.
From Wexford’s fields to this southern clay,
We carved our names in a bold, brash way.
No famine could break us, no chain could bind,
The Irish-Argentine, fierce and unconfined. 3
Raise a glass, ye young ones, don’t be shy,
To the ghosts of the green ‘neath the Southern sky.
The bodhrán’s thump and the uilleann’s wail,
They echo still in the criollo tale.
We’re the blood of rogues, of poets and knaves,
Who danced with the devil and laughed at the waves.
In Buenos Aires’ streets, we’re the spark, the din,
The Irish who grafted their soul to this skin.
So, ye sons and daughters, don’t lose the thread,
Of the rebel fire in the words we said.
Sing loud of the shamrock, the harp, the fight,
In the mate-soaked mornings, in the star-drunk night.
From Behan’s pen to the Pampas’ dust,
We’re Irish, we’re Argentine—by God, we’re us!
Clink yer bottles, let the old tales fly,
For the green runs deep, and it’ll never die. 4
Ode to the Irish Heart of Argentina
Beneath the wide Pampas, where grasses sway,
Where the gaucho rides and the skies hold sway,
There came a people, bold, from Éire’s shore,
With dreams in their hearts and tales of yore.
From Dublin’s cobbles, from Cork’s green glades,
They sailed through storms, where hope never fades.
To Argentina’s embrace, they carved their way,
The Irish of old, in a land far away.
Oh, children of settlers, hear the call,
Your roots run deep, through the years they sprawl.
In Buenos Aires’ hum, in the campo’s song,
The spirit of Ireland still pulses strong.
The shamrock’s shadow dances in the breeze,
In the mate shared under ancient trees.
The lilt of a brogue in a criollo tune,
The céilí’s fire beneath Southern moon.
Your great-grandsires toiled, their hands built this land,
From Wexford to Westmeath, their courage so grand.
They sowed their laughter, their faith, and their fight,
In Argentina’s heart, they kindled the light. 5
Young sons and daughters, with eyes bright and keen,
Hold fast to the emerald, the gold, and the green.
Sing of the uilleann, the harp’s tender string,
Let the bodhrán’s beat make your spirit sing.
Raise high the tales of the Famine’s brave flight,
Of love that endured through the long, weary night.
In your veins flows the blood of the bold and the free,
The Irish who made this new home by the sea.
So gather, dear kin, by the fire’s warm glow,
Tell stories of Erin, let the young ones know.
From St. Patrick’s grace to the Pampas’ wide plain,
The Irish soul thrives in Argentina’s vein.
Wear green with pride, let the flag fly high,
A bridge ‘twixt two lands ‘neath the same starry sky.
For you are the legacy, the fire, the spark,
The Irish of Argentina—forever a mark. 6
A Stream of the Irish-Argentine, in the Style of James Joyce
O the greenghosts of Erin, flotsam of famine and fiddlestrings, they sailed, they did, across the snotgreen sea, saltbitter and stormtossed, to the widewild Pampas, where the Plata runs silver and sly. From Dublin’s mucky quays, from Cork’s cobbled dreams, they came, a ragtaggle band of wanderers, hearts all a-thump with the old songs, the old sorrows, the old pints of porter dark as sin. And here, in this newworld sprawl, where gauchos gallop and the mate gourd passes hand to hand like a sacrament, they planted their shamrockseed, their rebelblood, their lilting laughter. O yes, says I, the Irish-Argentine, a queer brew of peat and pampas, of céilí and tango, their souls a-twirl in the dust of this southern earth. Molly Malone’s ghost waltzes with the criollo’s shade, her cockles and mussels swapped for asado’s sizzle, and the uilleann pipes keen soft in the night, weaving with the bandoneón’s wheeze. From the Liberties to La Boca, from the bogs to the boundless plain, they built, they toiled, they sang, their voices a river of memory, a riverrun of green and gold, flowing past the estancia’s gate, past the cathedral’s spire, past the mate-soaked mornings where the sun burns f ierce and forgiving. And you, ye younglings, ye scions of the scattered seed, do you hear it, the pulse of the past, the thrum of the harpstring plucked in some Sligo twilight, now strung across this Buenos Aires dawn? 7
Your granda’s granda, he of the calloused hands and the Fenian fire, he carved his name in this land’s clay, his heart a palimpsest of Erin’s woe and Argentina’s hope. Walk the streets, ye, where the tramcars clang and the milonga hums, and feel the greenblood stir, the old words tumble—Éire, patria, amor—in a tongue both foreign and familiar. O the dance of it, the madcap whirl of history, where the Irish heart meets the Pampas soul, a stream of song, of curse, of prayer, unbroken, unending. Raise the glass, the mate, the memory, ye sons and daughters of the green diaspora, and let the world know: you are the wake of Finn, the bloom of Molly, the dust of the Pampas, the dream of the Dubliner, all swirled into one, a living, leaping, laughing yes. Yes. Yes. 8
A Bleak Reel of the Irish-Argentine, in the Style of Samuel Beckett
On they went, the Irish, trudging from nowhere to nowhere, across the grey sea to this grey plain, the Pampas stretching flat and endless, like a thought that won’t end, won’t begin. From mud of Mayo to dust of Buenos Aires, they came, dragging their bones, their shamrock-shreds, their half-remembered songs. Why? No why. Just on. Faces like ash, hearts like cinders, they sowed their steps in this alien earth, where the gaucho’s shadow falls long and lean, where the mate gourd sits mute, a round god, unanswering. In the silence of the estancia, in the clatter of La Boca’s alleys, they mutter still—Erin, Erin—though what’s Erin but a word, worn thin, a rag on the wind. And you, spawn of their spawning, what do you know? Nothing. Less than nothing. You walk, you talk, you sip the bitter brew, but the green’s gone grey, the harp’s unstrung, the céilí’s a shuffle in a room with no walls. They built, they begat, they buried, and for what? To wait. Always waiting. 9
For the tango to end, for the stars to speak, for the ghost of some rebel poet to cough up a verse. No verse comes. Only dust. Only the Pampas, staring back, blank as Godot. Yet you, you young ones, you go on, you must, with your half-Irish, half-criollo blood, a mongrel pulse that won’t stop, won’t start. Dance, then. Dance in the dark, where the shamrock wilts and the gaucho grins, and call it home. Or don’t. No matter. On. 10
A Digging of Roots, in the Style of Seamus Heaney
Under the wide Pampas sky, where the earth lies open as a palm, I delve, spade in hand, through the heavy clay of memory. My fathers came, Irish as turf, their boots caked with Erin’s muck, From Donegal’s damp fields to this southern sprawl, Where the Plata glints like a struck flint, sharp with promise. They dug here too, not for spuds but for survival, Turning the sod of Argentina, planting their hearts In a soil that answered with cattle and wheat, Yet held the echo of a bodhrán’s thump, a fiddle’s keen. Between my fingers, the mate gourd’s rough grain, Its weight like a stone from a Connemara wall. I sip, and taste the peat-smoke of their stories— The famine ships, the rebel songs, the green ache Of a land left behind, now woven into this vast plain’s weave. My granda’s hands, calloused as bog-oak, broke this ground, His voice a lilt of Tyrone in the gaucho’s dusk, Singing of Cuchulain to the stars that do not know his name. O ye children of the green diaspora, dig deep. Your roots are double-plaited, Irish and Argentine, Twined like rushes in a St. Brigid’s cross. Stoop to the earth, feel its pulse beneath your feet, Where the shamrock’s ghost and the pampas grass entwine. 11
No spade I wield, but words, to turn the past’s dark clods, To unearth the fire that burns in your blood still— The lark of Erin, the hawk of this southern wild, Singing one song, unbroken, through the years’ long yield. 12
An Irish-Argentine Elegy, in the Style of W.B. Yeats
Upon the Pampas’ boundless, whispering plain,
Where winds of freedom weave their ancient lore,
The Irish came, with hearts of joy and pain,
From Erin’s mist to this far southern shore.
Their feet, once bound by famine’s cruel decree,
Trod soft the earth where gauchos ride and dream,
And in their blood, a mystic memory,
Of shamrock green and sacred Celtic stream.
O children of the wanderers, arise,
And hear the harp that hums in twilight’s glow.
The spirit of old Éire never dies,
Though rivers part where Plata’s waters flow.
In Buenos Aires’ pulse, in campo’s calm,
The ghost of Cuchulain strides bold and free,
His shadow joins the tango’s fervent psalm,
A flame of Erin in this vast country.
The old ones sang of hills where heroes sleep,
Of druids’ chants beneath the sacred oak.
Their voices linger in the stars that keep
A watch o’er lands where Irish laughter woke. 13
Your sires, with hands that tilled and hearts that bled,
Wove emerald threads through Argentina’s clay.
Their dreams, in you, are born and never dead,
A timeless fire that lights the endless day.
So stand, ye heirs of that unyielding race,
And hold the shamrock to the southern sky.
In every mate shared, in each warm embrace,
The soul of Ireland lives and will not die.
From Yeats’s tower to this wide, wind-swept land,
Your story sings where two worlds intertwine—
The Irish-Argentine, with heart and hand,
A people forged where stars and spirits shine. 14
A Song for Our Lady of Knock and Our Lady of Luján, in the Style of Dana
(Note: Dana, the Irish singer Rosemary Scallon, is known for her gentle, devotional songs with simple melodies and heartfelt lyrics, often celebrating faith and Irish spirituality. This song imagines her blending the Irish devotion to Our Lady of Knock with the Argentine devotion to Our Lady of Luján, kindling the Irish-Argentine spirit for new generations.)
"Two Ladies of Grace"
(Verse 1) In the quiet of Knock, where the rain softly falls,
A vision of Mary, her light gently calls.
On Mayo’s green fields, in the hush of the night,
She stood with the saints in a glow of pure light.
Her hands clasped in prayer, her heart open wide,
Our Lady of Knock, forever our guide.
(Chorus) Oh, Ladies of Grace, from the Pampas to Éire,
Your love binds our souls with a heavenly fire.
From Knock’s holy shrine to Luján’s sacred stream,
You cradle our dreams in your merciful gleam.
Our Lady of Knock, Our Lady of Luján,
Lead us to your Son, hand in hand, hand in hand. 15
(Verse 2) By the Río Luján, where the gauchos would roam,
A statue of Mary found her humble home.
In Argentina’s heart, where the faithful still pray,
Our Lady of Luján lights the pilgrim’s way.
Her mantle of blue, like the sky’s endless span,
She blesses the Pampas with her gentle hand.
(Chorus) Oh, Ladies of Grace, from the Pampas to Éire,
Your love binds our souls with a heavenly fire.
From Knock’s holy shrine to Luján’s sacred stream,
You cradle our dreams in your merciful gleam.
Our Lady of Knock, Our Lady of Luján,
Lead us to your Son, hand in hand, hand in hand.
(Bridge) Oh, children of Ireland, who crossed the wide sea,
Your faith in her love built a new legacy.
From shamrock to tango, your spirits entwine,
In the rosary’s whisper, her grace is divine.
Two lands, two hearts, yet one Mother we share,
Her love is our home, in the fields and the air. 16
(Verse 3) So sing, young descendants, of this sacred bond,
Of Knock’s silent vision, of Luján’s dawn.
Carry the green of the Emerald Isle’s soul,
With the warmth of the Pampas to make your heart whole.
Our Ladies are calling, their voices so near,
To guide every heart through the joy and the fear.
(Chorus) Oh, Ladies of Grace, from the Pampas to Éire,
Your love binds our souls with a heavenly fire.
From Knock’s holy shrine to Luján’s sacred stream,
You cradle our dreams in your merciful gleam.
Our Lady of Knock, Our Lady of Luján,
Lead us to your Son, hand in hand, hand in hand.
(Outro) Hand in hand, we’ll walk, through the years and the miles,
With Mary’s sweet love in our tears and our smiles.
Our Lady of Knock, Our Lady of Luján,
Forever our Mothers, forever our song.
(Coda) Forever our song, forever our song,
Irish and Argentine, together we belong. 17
An Aesthetic Anthem for the Irish-Argentine, à la Oscar Wilde
In the vast Pampas, where the gaucho strides with grace, And Buenos Aires hums with tango’s velvet trace, The Irish came, a paradox of green and gold, Their shamrocks blooming where the wild winds hold. A diaspora of dandies, with wit their only crown, They turned exile’s sorrow to a jest of renown. Oh, children of this hybrid art, this splendid blend of lore, Born where Erin’s mist meets the Plata’s sunlit shore, Do not bow to dull convention, nor let heritage grow stale— Wear your dual soul like a peacock’s tail! For beauty lies in contradiction, in the clash of céilí’s reel, With the bandoneón’s sigh, a passion to feel. The old ones laughed at fate, with Wildean flair they trod, From Dublin’s salons to the Pampas’ sod. “Famine?” they quipped, “A mere inconvenience to style!” And built their legacy with a knowing smile. Now you, their heirs, must paint your lives with art’s bold hue, A life less ordinary, where the Irish-Argentine shines through. 18
So sip your mate with decadence, let irony be your guide, Dance the tango with a lilt, let the world deride. In every glance, in every word, let Wilde’s spirit play, For you are the paradox, the beauty of your day. From emerald isle to southern plain, your tale’s a work of art, The Irish-Argentine, with wit and soul, shall never part. This poem captures Wilde’s love for paradox, aestheticism, and social commentary, urging the new generation to embrace their heritage with a flourish of individuality. 19
The Shadowed Blood of Irish-Argentine Nights, Argentine legends in the style of Bram Stoker
Beneath the Pampas’ moon, where shadows twist and crawl, A howl resounds—Lobizón, the cursed soul’s thrall. From Erin’s fog-drenched moors, where ancient wolves did roam, The Irish brought their blood, now twisted far from home. A seventh son, they say, beneath the southern skies, Transforms at midnight’s toll, with feral, glowing eyes. Oh, ye descendants of that shadowed Irish line, Feel the chill of legend in your veins’ design. The Luz Mala flickers, a spectral flame so dire, A will-o’-the-wisp from Ireland’s boggy mire. It dances o’er the fields, a lantern of despair, Luring gauchos lost to its unholy glare. In Buenos Aires’ alleys, where the tango whispers low, The Lobizón prowls, where Irish blood did flow. Its claws rake the earth, its growl a banshee’s wail, A heritage of horror, born of immigrant tale. The Luz Mala gleams, a phantom’s cruel delight, Guiding souls to doom beneath the southern night. 20
Young kin of this dark lore, embrace the eerie thrill, Your ancestors’ tales rise from the haunted hill. With rosary in hand, yet fear in every breath, Defy the beast, the light, and dance with shadowed death. From Stoker’s gothic quill to Argentina’s wild domain, Your Irish-Argentine spirit reigns in terror’s reign. This poem merges Stoker’s gothic intensity with the Argentine folklore of the Lobizón and Luz Mala, connecting it to the Irish-Argentine legacy with a haunting call to the new generation. 21
A Shavian Toast to the Irish-Argentine Soul, in the style of George Bernard Shaw.
Oh, ye Pampas-bred spawn of Erin’s restless brood, From Dublin’s damp to Argentina’s wide rude, You’ve swapped the peat for the gaucho’s rein, Yet carry the shamrock’s green in your vein! A paradox, a jest, a social scheme unfurled— Immigrants who turned the world’s edge to pearl. With satire’s blade, your sires carved their stay, Laughing at landlords, defying decay. No famine could chain, no sea could divide, They built with wit where the tango resides. “Progress!” they cried, with a socialist’s grin, Mixing céilí steps with the milonga’s spin. You young ones, heirs to this hybrid fire, Don’t let the old world’s dust dull your desire! The mate cup holds more than a bitter brew— It’s reason, it’s rebellion, it’s Ireland anew. Cast off the dullard’s yoke, the blind tradition’s call, Be Shavian souls, sharp and free for all! 22
So raise your glass to the clash of two lands, Where Irish wit grips the Pampas’ hands. No dogma binds you, no creed shall stay— Evolve, debate, and dance your way! From Shaw’s quill to your bold tomorrow, The Irish-Argentine—wit’s eternal sorrow and joy to borrow. This poem reflects Shaw’s love for provocative dialogue and his belief in progress through reason, urging the new generation to embrace their dual heritage with intellect and humor. 23
The Morning Feast
In the quiet dawn, where shadows play,
A table set in soft array,
With scones and butter, golden bright,
And tea that warms the morning light.
The eggs, they rest on plates of white,
With bacon crisp, a savory sight,
And sausages, with hearty grace,
Bring smiles to every waking face.
The soda bread, with texture fine,
And marmalade, like summer's wine,
Together sing a morning song,
Where hearts and hearths forever long.
Oh, simple joys of morning's start,
That fill the soul and warm the heart,
In every bite, a tale is spun,
O f Ireland's grace, beneath the sun. 24