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(The Irish Freestate was neutral during the war which was referred to as 'The Emergency' -Donegal was of enormous importance for access to the port of Derry and as a corridor for escort planes as well as ships to use during the Battle of the Atlantic.)

SCENES FROM MY EMERGENCY

Flap - blap - flap seaplanes slush slush to a stop

Boats, boats, boats, drone of bombers, nights punctuated by wheeps, wheeps.

Endless strafing on Minearney -

Slow climbing growl eastwards off up o’er Binev'nagh,

Wrench westward seeking the target

Hurtling downwards, tail flash, smoke plume,

Three four five seconds late crump booms on Moville.

Tar-coated rocks, flotsam , jetsam, empty jagged tins,

Scooped grapefruit halves - the Yanks are here!

Mammoth Californian apples - black spots on yellow skin,

Canned fruit, Wrigley’s Spearmint, Hersey chocolate bars,

Cents and dimes flung freely;

Smiles, warmth, style.

Chinese galley boys rove inland haggling over fowl -

No smiles, tight prices, rabbits bought from handlebars....

'Bless them all, bless them all... Bless De Valera and Sean Mac Entee

Bless the brown bread and the half ounce of tea....'

Bum-boaters flourish, wads of notes, laden motor-boats offshore.

Dynamic MTBs roar and sprint, roar and sprint, make small the Foyle,

Destroyers, frigates, corvettes proudly plough past the Light,

Send head-high billows rushing towards the rocks....

Slow, eerie, sinister, tangerine crossed with black

The Fever ship glides in, moors at its special spot.

Weaponless the Forsa Cosanta Aitiuil march upland to the Tank -

Steady Boys and Step Together -

Green greatcoats cover blue-geared corpses -

We jump to peep over tailboards of Army lorries -

And nightly, noise and drinking and fighting go on -

Australian rookies cry for Mums ten thousand miles away.

Bombing practice ever beckons the ear, beckons the eye by day,

Destroyers semaphore night and day, shutters busily flicking.

Orange and violet flares burst out and hang, hang, hang over Magilligan.

Sickeningly, speeding ships still being torpedoed off Stroove Head

Blighting, killing fresh apple-blossom romance -

'You'll never know just how much I love you'....

And now the black procession — funeral-paced it seems - up channel

Two by two by two by two …. the U-Boats destined to berth at Lisahally;

Our history teacher seizes the moment,

But only the final moment.

'You went away. and my heart went with you....'

Note.'Scenes from My Emergency' (impressions of J.J. Keaveny aged 4 in 1939)

Moville on Lough Foyle (shared waters) was unique: grandstand view of Allied

fleets; naval personnel free to land in full uniform; bombing practice daily

on far side of Lough at Minearney; nightly Foyle channel full of warships,

oilers — often upwards of 80 vessels; oily detritus etc.

Two Liberator bombers crash near Moville June 19 1944, all sixteen airmen die

Irish Army officers and privates recovered RAF and USAF casualties — and recover

and inter Allied personnel washed ashore

‘Emergency’ — Eire’s designation of world-wide conflict involving at least 65m

dead! Benignly neutral, the smugglers among others profited from the struggle

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