Up in the morning long before daybreak <br />Life was not easy for men like 'Con the Lake' <br />And he drove his lorry through the long tiring day <br />For an owner driver there's no easy pay. <br /> <br />A load of cattle to the fair in Kanturk <br />Might well be the start for him of a hard day's work <br />And a few loads of gravel and a load of sand or two <br />To be delivered to customers before his day was through. <br /> <br />But September perhaps his busiest month of all <br />For the turf was stacked and dry in Gneeves in the Fall <br />And the hilly road he journeyed up and down <br />That leads from Gneeves bog to Millstreet Town. <br /> <br />One of the six Dennehy brothers that I knew of or I knew <br />Jer, Sonny, Jack and Christy and Bill I heard of too <br />From small lake on their mountain farm their sobriquet came <br />And their children now still carry the nick name. <br /> <br />Con the Lake's second son Dan is an owner driver today <br />Like father like son it often seems that way <br />He to rise early drive before daylight <br />And he often works long hours into the night. <br /> <br />The mountain field by fog covered in gray <br />And the birds pipe in the early dawn of day <br />And the ghost of Con the Lake is driving still <br />Up the steep road that leads to Gneeves hill.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/con-the-lake/
