In a church, still and lonely,
One poor old woman only
Is wrapped in prayer,
And pious meditation;
Moving along from station
To station there.

Not a bright sight to look on,
Or write a brilliant book on.
Heaven sees; heaven hears.
None but the pure and tender
And true may comprehend her
Sighs and her tears.

Heaven knows how well she pleases
The loving Heart of Jesus.
This poor frail one –
She weeps with Mary weeping;
In step with Mary keeping;
Near Mary’s Son.

This particular poem was printed in ‘AFRICAN MISSONARY’magazine- MARCH/APRIL 1965

This poem was written after “Granny Bard” (Michael’s Wife)died in June 1963

A WILD and lonely place
Was Glennanaffrin.
Blest with a special grace
Is Glennanaffrin:
There Holy Mass was said
In the dark days and dread,
When priests and people prayed
In Glennanaffrin.

There was no man-made church
In Glennanaffrin;
No sacristy, no porch,
In Glennanaffrin:
No roof to arch it o’er;
No windows, walls or floor;
A church without a door,
Was Glennanaffrin.

They knelt at Holy Mass
In Glennanaffrin.
On “knee-stones” on the grass,
In Glennanaffrin.
No bell called them to prayer;
No heating system there;
They came Christ’s Cross to share
In Glennanaffrin.

Those times, those crowds have gone
From Glennanaffrin.
Still the wee burn flows on
By Glennanaffrin.
For God they lived, and died.
The despot they defied,
No wonder we still pride
In Glennanaffrin.

M. O. MAOLAIN

(This was unusual to have his name signed in Irish)

Book of poems – typed by Dr. Peter Gormley – The Old Altar in Altamuskin

The hills above are high, the glen is deep;
A singing brooklet lulls the glen to sleep –
A holy glen: for Mass was offered there
When churches, but not worshippers, were rare.

Churches and schools were luxuries allowed
But seldom to our sires by tyrants proud;
No wonder then, our fathers deemed it good
To raise an altar in this solitude.

‘Twas a cold place for Mass in this cold clime,
And yet a meet place in the penal time;
The lone hills sheltered it from storms un-kind –
And from worse tyrants than the winter wind.

A quaint old chapel this! A muddy floor;
And heaven the only roof that arched it o’er;
Its walls – green slopes that leaned against the land:
A house of God raised up by God’s own Hand.

Gaze we in fancy on a scene sublime –
A Sabbath morning in the winter time;
Poor toil-worn peasant from the hills around,
Kneeling on “knee-stones” on the snowclad ground.

They have no heating apparatus there;
Nor warm nor costly are the clothes they wear;
Naught save the fire of Faith is there to warm
Hearts raised to God, oblivious of the storm.

Passed has that scene as earthly scenes all pass –
No throng is there to-day, no priest, no Mass;
But the calm hills still guard the holy nook,
And still unwearied goes the singing brook.

(Footnote by P.D. – We all know the hymn ‘Ive found a Treasure in a Field’, it brings to mind finding a treasure – a pot of Gold in a big field in a valley like the fertile land of Clogher Valley or a verdant plain in Meath (good land). But our ancestors found a treasure ‘The Eucharist – the Mass’ in the corner of a wild secluded glen in Altamuskin {Glennaffrin} and later they came to worship in the old Altar Glen for generations before the Chapel of Dunmoyle was built in the 1860’s. – Granda wrote a poem – GLENNANAFFRIN {The Old Altar at Altamuskin, Dunmoyle}.)  Matha Jack (Mullin – granda’s uncle) was the last survivor who had worshiped at the old Altar at Altamuskin regularly.