Garryowen is gone to wrack Since Johnny Connell went to Cork, Though Darby O'Brien leapt over the dock In spite of all the soldiers. Instead, etc. HANNAH HEALY, THE PRIDE OF HOWTH. You matchless nine, to my aid incline, For Hannah Healy, the pride of Howth. She's tall and slender, both young and tender; She's modest, mild, and she's all sublime; For education in Erin's nation There's none to equal this nymph divine; I wish to gain her, but can't obtain her, I'd fondly court her, but yet I'm loath, Lest I should tease her or once displease her, Sweet Hannah Healy, the pride of Howth. At seventeen this maid serene My heart attracted, I must allow; In all Olympus I'm sure no nymph is, Or beauteous Venus from the briny froth;— I am captivated-I do repeat it By Hannah Healy, the pride of Howth. Each lovely morning young men keep swarming She's so enchanting, they all are panting But still they 're fearful, and no way cheerful, I'll drop my writing and my inditing, THE IRISH GRANDMOTHER.1 Paddy, agra, run down to the bog, for my limbs are beginning to tire, And see if there's ever a sod at all that 's dry enough for a fire: God be praised! It's terrible times, and granny is weak and old, And the praties black as the winter's face, and the night so dark and cold! It's many a day since I seen the like, but I did one, Pat, asthore, And I prayed to God on my bended knees I might never see it more. "T was the year before the Risin' of Smith O'Brien, you know, Thirty-two years ago, Paddy,-thirty-two years ago. Your grandfather-God rest his soul!-went out with the boys to fight; For the bailiffs came with the crowbars, and the sickness came with the blight, An' he said it was better to die like a man, though he held but a rusty pike, Than starve on the roadside, beggin' for food, an' be thrown like a dog in the dike. 1 This ballad made its appearance during the agitation and distress of the winter of 1879. It was first published in the Dublin Nation over the signature In Fide Fortis. Ochone, ochone! it's a sorrowful tale, but listen afore you go, For Tim he never came back to me, but I'll see him soon, know. I Tim Ryan he held a decent farm in the glen o' Cahirmore, And he tilled the lands the Ryans owned two hundred years before; An' it's many a time, by the blazing fire, I heard from the priest, Father John (He was my husband's cousin, agra, and he lived to be ninetyone), That the Ryans were chiefs of the country round till Cromwell, the villain, came, And battered the walls of the castle and set all the houses aflame; He came an' he stabled his horses in the abbey of St. Columkille, An' the mark of his murderin' cannon you may see on the old wall still. An' he planted a common trooper where the Ryans were chief tains of yore, An' that was the first o' the breed of him that's now Lord Cahirmore. Old Father John, he was ninety-one-it was he that could tell you the story, An' every name of his kith and kin,-may their souls now rest in glory! His father was shot in '98 as he stood in the chapel door; more; An' thin there was Donough, Donal More, and Turlough on the roll, An' Kian, boy, that lost the lands because he'd save his soul. Ochone, machree, but the night is cold, and the hunger in your face. Hard times are comin', avic! God help us with his grace! Three years before the famine came the agent raised the rent, But then there was many a helpin' hand, and we struggled on content. Ochone, ochone! we 're lonely now, now that our need is sore, For there's none but good Father Mahony that ever comes inside our door. God bless him for the food he brings an' the blankets that keep us warm! God bless him for his holy words that shelter us from harm! This is the month an' the day, Paddy, that my own colleen went, She died on the roadside, Paddy, when we were drove out for the rent; An' it's well that I remember how she turned to me an' cried, "There's never a pain that mayn't be a gain," and crossed herself and died. For the Soupers were there with shelter and food if we'd only tell the lie, But they fled like the wicked things they were when they saw poor Kathleen die. She's prayin' for all of us now, Paddy,-her blessing I know she's giving! An' they that have little here below have much, asthore, in heaven! THE IRISHMAN'S FAREWELL TO HIS COUNTRY.1 Oh! farewell, Ireland, I am going across the stormy main, Where cruel strife will end my life, to see you never again. 'T will break my heart from you to part, acushla store machree! But I must go full of grief and woe to the shores of America. On Irish soil my fathers dwelt since the days of Brian Boru, They paid their rent and lived content, convenient to Carriemore, But the landlord sent on the move my poor father and me: We must leave our home far away to roam in the fields of America. No more at the churchyard, store machree, at my mother's grave I'll kneel. The tyrants know but little of the woe the poor man has to feel. When I look on the spot of ground that is so dear to me, I could curse the laws that have given me cause to depart to America. 1 This ballad made its appearance during the time of the Fenian excitement in 1865, when the peasants expected an expedition from the Irish in the United States. O, where are the neighbors, kind and true, that were once the country's pride? No more will they be seen on the face of the green, nor dance on the green hillside. It is the stranger's cow that is grazing now, where the people we used to see. With notice they were served, to be turned out or starved, or banished to America. O, Erin, machree, must our children be exiled all over the earth? Will they evermore think of you, astore, as the land that gave them birth? Must the Irish yield to the beasts of the field? 0, no, acushla store machree! They are coming back in ships with vengeance on their lips from the shores of America. IRISH MOLLY 0.1 Oh! who is that poor foreigner that lately came to town, She's modest, mild, and beautiful, the fairest I have The primrose of Ireland-all blooming here alone- When Molly's father heard of it, a solemn oath he swore, MacDonald heard the heavy news-and grievously did say"Farewell, my lovely Molly, since I'm banished far away, A poor forlorn pilgrim I must wander to and fro, And all for the sake of my Irish Molly O!" She's modest, etc. 1 This ballad has been largely kept alive by virtue of the beautiful and pathetic air to which it is sung. |