Holy imagery. This is gorgeous. I love how descriptive you get, it's more art than it is poetry. My favorite things about your writing :)

I love how we take this little journey and sit in anticipation awaiting what the reveal, the treasure is. That's exactly what it was, treasure. Sounds gorgeous!

And, I LOVE that you used the word 'brambly'.

Colm...this poem is so nice and...I'm going to admit it made me feel slightly homesick

speak the summer, near the dusk
of the Atlantic, from the cove
where over my shoulder the beam
of the lighthouse beams,
like whale-watching from the basalt.

In you very first line you have used the twice...maybe...I speak of summer?

In the second line..twice more..maybe of the Atlantic from thy cove?

third and forth beam and beams?

Driving on the peninsula
of stone walls and haunted houses
tucking themselves in, the smell
of salt and the catch tickles,

^^^

I just love this...there is a picture in my mind of so many of these little houses...huanted or not...I will always remember them

and trudging along the brambly
old mass path, past the heather batch
and scant fields to the pair
of geneflecting willows
atop the cliffs,

again...my mind goes back to my 3 visits to Ireland....geneflecting? did you mean genuflecting?

To where the crayon coloured cloth flew
from a stick, rooted in the mossy soil.
The flag of the peninsula
blowing from its vantage point
overlooking the ocean

^^^^

Perfect...nothing to add to this stanza.