It was written in 1947 by Patrick Kavanagh. In 1962 he met Luke Kelly of The Dubliners and said "here Kelly, you should sing this" or words very similar. Kelly put the words to an old trad tune Finne Gael An La (not too sure of my spelling) And his recording is the definitive version, It's both an unequited Love song for a lady called Hilda Moriaty, and I believe more so a typical Irish allegory style song for his love/hate relationship for the states involvement in church matters and vice versa, also a lot of the song relates to his b itterness that the fame, fortune and women, which came to others such as Joyce, Behan etc never came to him. Although since his death he is now regarded as one of Ireland's greatest writers. It was titled Raglan Road by Kelly as there were at least 4 other works at the time named Dawning Of The Day, the original poem's title