Raglan Road - John Sheahan's 80th Birthday Concert - Featuring Glen Hansard and Declan O'Rourke (tribute to Luke Kelly)

             I might just bid you 'Good -Night' with this, one of the finest love songs ever written as The Dubliner's wonderful violinist John Sheahan says here that Luke Kelly met Kavanaugh in a pub off Grafton Street and said 'Here Luke your the one to sing this song' . . . . . . . here sung beautifully by Hansard and O'Rourke to the air 'The Dawning of The Day' . . .this heartbreaking song will leave you breathless I believe. If it doesn't , check your pulse.

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I saw her first and knew

That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;

I saw the danger, yet I passed along the enchanted way,

And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day. 

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge

Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,

The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay

Oh I loved too much and by such by such is happiness thrown away. 

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known

To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone

And word and tint I would not stint for I gave her poems to say.

With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May 

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now

Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow

That I had loved not as I should a creature made of clay

When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.

Patrick Kavanaugh