Warrung gathering
By Anne Casey
For Brendan
Keeping with your ancients,
kin either side
of the great divide,
you have circled this place,
taken leaves of the abiding:
eucalypts, strong and straight
as your line, survivors alike.
Through the blue
haze of your pyre,
we see your people come
and gather along Warrung shore
to watch the red devils
land their longboats,
unloading their cargo:
my people,
taibhsí liath,
grey ghosts
lined up
in chains.
Through the blue haze,
we watch your people
watch my people:
grey ghosts walking,
taibhsí liath ag céim
all along Warrung shore,
bearing their burdens,
our shared sorrows:
stolen lands, stolen stories,
stolen children from whom
our native tongues
were torn.
Watching your people
watch my people
through the haze:
taibhsí liath ag céim,
grey ghosts walking
in chains,
I give to you
my true name:
Is mise Áine Ní Cathasaigh
(I am Anne,
Daughter of the Watchful)
as Sráid na Cathrach,
(from the Street of the Stone
Ringfort) where my own
held place
until those same
Sasanach came
and burned down
our home, shot dead
our neighbours
in my grandfather’s day:
I grew up in the grey
haze and whispers
of that lingering affray.
And here, far away,
you burn for me
leaves of the abiding,
tell to me your true name,
all your losses and lost,
under watch of your ancients
while the blue haze encircles us
on this long-estranged Warrung shore
where you make for me welcome
to your kinplace of old.
But my heart knows these grounds
like those shores of my own;
these lands were stolen
long before I had come.
While the haze
of your welcome
rises up and
winds round,
I tell you my truth
in the words of my heart:
Taibhse liath is mise,
taibhse liath anseo,
taibhse liath ag céim—
go brách idir domhain.
I am a grey ghost,
a grey ghost here,
a grey ghost walking—
forever between worlds.
Read Anne's introduction to the poem here.
Notes:
- Heartfelt thanks to Brendan Kerin, Marrawarra and Barkindji Elder, and cultural educator for the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, for granting me permission to tell this story, inspired by his Welcome to Country smoke ceremony and our shared history as colonised peoples.
- Warrung is the Dharug name for the area known as Circular Quay in Sydney.
- The words in my native language, Gaeilge (Irish), which was outlawed under British colonial rule in Ireland translate as:
taibhsí liath — grey ghosts
ag céim — stepping/walking
Is mise — I am
Áine Ní Cathasaigh — Anne, Daughter of the Watchful
as Sráid na Cathrach — from the Street of the Stone Ringfort
Sasanach — English invaders
taibhse liath — grey ghost
anseo — here
go brách — forever
idir domhain — between worlds
- This poem references my family history. In 1921, my home in west Clare, Ireland was burned to the ground by occupying British soldiers. My 13-year-old paternal grandfather and family barely escaped the blazing house while several neighbours were shot dead. Ten houses in our small town and others in neighbouring villages were destroyed by British troops that night. I grew up amongst the ghosts of that night in our rebuilt family home. My maternal grandfather told me stories of being beaten as a child for speaking in our native language (Gaeilge, Irish), which had previously been prohibited under colonial law in Ireland. My paternal grandmother recounted to me many times being held at gunpoint in her home by a British soldier when she was 16 years old.