TEAR DOWN THE RIVER GODS

Bann, Barrow, Boyne,

Blackwater, Erne and Foyle,

Lagan, Lee and Liffey,

Shannon, Suir and Slainey,

Nore and the wild Atlantic.

Fadó, fadó in Eireann

Our rivers were our Goddesses,

Racing torrents in the mountains,

Rolling slowly through the fields,

Bringing life to land and people.

Named for Boann who walked tuathal

Round the well and raised the waters,

Named for Sinnan whom the Shannon

Severed limb from shattered limb,

Women were the waters – divinity flowed forth.

Now there’s a Custom House in Dublin.

Built by the invader,

Fourteen false Gods guard the coffers.

River Gods, the English called them,

All bar one they made them male.

Their stony heads stare down

On the throngs of true believers

Bringing import export tributes.

Sacred lifeblood of this island

Now mere arteries of commerce.

Bann, Barrow, Boyne,

Blackwater, Erne and Foyle,

Lagan, Lee and Liffey,

Shannon, Suir and Slainey,

Nore and the Wild Atlantic.

We put their likenesses on banknotes,

These fake imposter Gods.

We passed them hand to hand,

Making everyone complicit

In the ritual forgetting.

The curse we brought upon us

Taints the waters of our island.

No wise man stops to drink them –

The foamy farming run off,

The algae fed by sewage,

Cyanide contamination

From mining operations,

Factories spew chemicals

That make fish float belly up

And the fines are cheaply paid.

Tear down the River Gods

And smash their stony heads.

Raise Boann up, and Sinnan,

And each of the Three Sisters,

Raise the Goddess in the waters.

Tear down the River Gods,

Clean up the toxic slime,

Restore the sparkle on the surface

And the healing in the depths

Of our rivers and our ocean.

Bann, Barrow, Boyne,

Blackwater, Erne and Foyle,

Lagan, Lee and Liffey,

Shannon, Suir and Slainey,

Nore and the Wild Atlantic.