The Place That No Longer Exists

Introduction To The Place That No Longer Exists:

There are places the eye passes without seeing.

A hollow beneath the grass, a broken line beneath the thorn, a patch of ground where nothing appears to remain. The walker moves on, following no path in particular, while the land keeps quietly what once belonged there.

A hearth may have fallen silent. A doorway may have vanished. Stones may have settled back into the earth, and the names of those who once lived there may have faded beyond memory.

Yet the land does not forget so easily.

It remembers in moss and fern, in the thorn that closes over old ground, in the wren that sings where a hearth once warmed the air, and in the hare that crosses a floor no human feet now tread.

Perhaps that is what happens to places that no longer exist.

They do not disappear entirely.

They become part of the land.

And sometimes, if we slow enough to look beyond what first appears, the land allows us to see them again.

Note: I have placed the Glossary after the Poem to test, and also because I do not want to take from the Poem itself. But rather provide the sound alike words to Irish Words and their meanings included.

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The Place That No Longer Exists





The ground dips soft here, poorer than grazing land,
no path winds in, no sign points out its strand.
where gorse blooms gold and fern spreads frond on frond,
walkers walks past, and does not look beyond.



Áit i gcló — a place withdrawn, set apart,
wrapped in quiet, safe from the world’s loud heart.
Whitethorn twists, blackthorn pricks the drifting air,
no wall stands high — only the earth is there.



No hearth sends smoke to sky, no door swings wide, 
just rounded stones where fire once glowed and sighed. 
a small clay pipe, long fallen into sleep.
moss wraps the edges, briars climb high.



Yet deep in thorn where twigs lock tight and small,
the wren lifts voice – his song outlasts it all.
Go glan, go lonnrach — 
one steady note where all else ceased to be.



And light as mist, through grass that sways and leans, 
the hare slips in —  silent, soft, unseen.
He pauses once, where feet once trod the floor,
then drifts like breath, and asks for nothing more.



But an chroí — the earths own quiet heart — 
keeps what was loved, and will not let it part. 
Held safe in fern, in dew, in wild thorn tree —  
i gcló go brách — hushed, hidden, free.







Copyright © 2026 Pat Fitzgerald 
All Rights Reserved 

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Glossary:

Irish — Sounds Like

Áit i gcló

EYE-t ih glō
A place in hiding / a place set apart

Go glan, go lonrach

Guh glan, guh LUN-rakh
Pure, bright, clear and radiant

An chroí

un khree
The heart

i gcló go brách

ih glō guh brawkh
Hidden / kept away forever

Crosbhóthar na gCuimhní

Kross-VOH-har nuh GWIV-nee
Crossroads of Memories

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