Sea Stories: Sea Wrack by Moira O’Neill

October 20, 2020 Samantha Andrews

Sea wrack - the large brown species of seaweeds in the family Fucaceae - has been collected by people all over the world for hundreds of years. Join point Moira O’Neill (the non de plume of Agnes Shakespeare Higginson) as she takes us to 19 century Ireland.

The wrack was dark an’ shiny where it floated in the sea, There was no-one in the brown boat but only him an’ me; Him to cut the sea wrack, me to mind the boat, An’ not a word between us the hours we were afloat. The wet wrack, The sea wrack, The wrack was strong to cut. We laid it on the gray rocks to wither in the sun, An’ what should call my lad, to sail from Cushendeen With a low moon, a full tide, a swell upon the deep, Him to sail the old boat, me to fall asleep. The dry wrack, The sea wreck, The wrack was dead so soon. There’ a fire low upon the rocks to burn the wrack to kelp, There’ a boat gone down upon the Moyle, an’ sorra’ one to help! Him beneath the salt sea, me upon the shore, By sunlight or moonlight we’ll lift the wrack no more. The dark wrack, The sea wrack, The wrack may drift ashore.

A setting of a poem by Moira O'Neill (from 'Songs of the Glens of Antrim'). Composed in around 1905 by Hamilton Harty - who provides us with one of the most ...

Sea Wrack is in the Public Domain.