Walking Past Adamnans Church in Birr
Its just another ruined church to some, but St Brendans Old Church in Birr is where a little known Irish saint wrote modern Europes first rules of war, and womens rights in battle, and not to fight in war, which is being eroded today. In those times, heads were taken as trophies – yes right up to Adamnan’s day, and of women fighters, breasts were chopped off too. We were a lovely people back then, no?
Among these ruins where Ivy grows
Gripping crevices in old stone walls
History in Europe once was written
Neath these arches from where jackdaws calls
Breaks the chilly December air
As by these ruins I now pass
Adamnans church in the town of Birr
No longer echos the sounds of mass
The sermon, the songs, the sobs of funerals
Before these stones commemorated the dead
Over which the grass grows as if they were not there
As if their funeral masses were never said.
Back then, Ireland was an Amazon race
– Of Scythian blood, it is no wonder
Some say the Amazons were Scythian in their legendary time –
Who in rage of battle ripped each other asunder
Women too fought like men
Recorded in legend like Queen Maeve
Few after Adamnans laws wielded the sword
Unlike Grainne Mhaol the brave
But those who did, when heads were collected
Had their breasts cut off, as trophy’s taken
Such was the savagery of the fight tose days
All honour and gentility foresaken…
Among these ruins, a lerned man
Wrote long before the league of Nations, a warriors code
Long before womens liberation, gave women rights
Who heretofor to battle rode
But now in the name of equality
From Afghanistan out to Iraq
A world has forgotten the wisdom of those times
As the warrior woman in battle is back.
Some time to come when conscription
Affects women globally as men
Will women, who do not want to go to the unavoidable fight
Remember Adamnan and his wise laws again?