Faoileán – Seagull

According to my site stats, I pretty regularly get visitors here looking for a translation of this poem. I’m not sure if it’s a testament to the popularity of this poem, certainly Michael Davitt‘s best-known, or to the fact that it’s part of the curriculum in Irish language classes. I tend to suspect the latter is a big part of it: the searches tend to cluster around the beginning of the school year, and originate mostly from Dublin and its suburbs.

So in the interest of both helping out some scoláirí and giving Michael Davitt a wider (though not much) audience in the English-speaking world, here’s my rendering of “Faoileán”:

Faoileán

le Michael Davitt

Thíos ar an trá,
Is an mhaidin ag pléascadh sa chuan,
Braithim an bás,
An púca im thimpeall go buan.

Féach an faoileán uaibhreach,
Mar bhrúscar ar charraig dhudh,
Cloisim amhrán uaigneach,
I saoirse na farraige.

Bhíodh sé ar snámh,
Go hard os cionn tonntracha bán’
Leath a sciatháin
Ó Bheanntraí go Dún na nGall.

Ach tháinig an bád ola seo,
Trasna na farraige,
Is lion sé an cuan gleoite seo,
Le fual lucht an airgid.

Féach an faoileán uaibhreach,
Mar bhrúscar ar charraig dhubh
Cloisim amhrán uaigneach,
I saoirse na farraige.

Seagull

by Michael Davitt

Down the beach,
with morning exploding in the harbor,
I feel death,
that constant hobgoblin companion.

I see the proud seagull,
wrecked on a black rock,
I hear its lonely song,
the freedom of the seas.

It was swimming,
high on the white waves’ crown,
spreading its wings
from Bantry to Donegal.

But then came the oil tanker,
across the seas,
and caught the tidy bay,
and pissed out its moneyed cargo.

I see the proud seagull,
wrecked on a black rock,
I hear its lonely song,
the freedom of the seas.