“Ashes and Embers”

For the families of Carrickmines and every Traveller who sleeps uneasy beneath the stars

Ten years gone, and still the smoke drifts low,

over tarmac bays where children played,

their laughter caught in a gust of flame—

a silence now where lives were made.

Names whispered through the chapel’s light,

Thomas, Sylvia, Tara, Jim—

the priest intones, the candles bite,

and grief hums softly, hymn on hymn.

The papers called it tragedy,

the State called it a wake-up call,

but on the road and on the site

the years roll by—no change at all.

In Hertfordshire, the sirens cry,

a mother clutches all she owns.

Fifteen homes in one bright flash,

and ash where children’s toys had grown.

From Dublin’s hills to England’s plains,

the stories share a single spark:

when safety’s left to politics,

the fires find us in the dark.

Still we stand where fences fall,

still we fight for space and sky,

for homes not built on borrowed ground,

for the right to live, not just to die.

Light a flame for those we’ve lost,

and promise, clear and strong, again:

never more shall neglect be cost—

never more shall we count in pain

By Claire Rice

(Image: Carrickmines Halting Site after the devastating fire on 10/10/2015 - screenshot from RTE broadcast)