Because A Fire Was In My Head

Over Christmas 2014, we went for a walk in Carron in The Burren. The local hunt went out in force for their seasonal outing. The weather was clear and fresh. The sign-posted walk was just long enough for our needs.


We have done the walk a number of times now and what has registered, despite all my visits to Clare, was the amount of Hazel trees. There may have been more than all others combined. They appeared that plentiful.


I was reminded of that when I spotted this poetry at the start of The Rocky Road in Ennis. I walked it a number of years ago but hadn’t noted the poem, or recognised the Hazel trees – and I am a sucker for public poetry, if you had not already gathered.


To experience tradition and folklore, I have entered 23rd June as a possible return to Ennis and the walk to St. John’s Well at Killone.

‘I went down to the Hazelwood
 Because a fire was in my head
 I cut and peeled a hazel wand
 And hooked a berry to a thread
And when white moths were on the wing
And moth like stars were flickering out
I put the berry in a stream
And hooked a little silver trout’

W B Yeats – The Song of Wandering Aengus

The poem apparently starts as ‘I went out…’ . Christy Moore’s lyrics do start as ‘I went down …’ so maybe his version also needs to be credited.