Irish Democrat March 1987

Page Six IRISH DEMOCRAT March 1M7
SHANTY IN OLD LONDON TOWN
(To the an l Slatterv's Mounted F ul. this ballad b> Donal Kennedy
eommemoraliN his exploits when water poured from the flat above
into the l our Pro\inces Bookshop in January from a burst pipe, and
the stopcock was in the cellar to which entrance — normally — is
pained from the said flat.)
C OMK all >e dauntless mariners who chum the ragin' surf
And cross the Western ocean filled with Double X and turf,
Whose lust\ youth was tamed by belles with Polynesian charms
And who spliced a rake of mainbraces beyant in Calthorp's arms
Whose sires of yore manned Erin's Hope and drove the Fenian Ram
Whose mothers roved with Granuaile and didn't give a damn
For Drake nor Rodney's Glory, nor for Faerie Queen nor King
But for our own Four Provinces would high and proudly swing.
Down rushed the Cataracts and Hurricanoes pounded
Be Neptune and ver man MacLir the bookshop nearly dhrownded
As some spake in divers tongues "tosnaimis ag snamh"
There goes our Buntus Cainte stock, "a victim to the thaw."
Then up spoke Gerry C urran, "Mates, how can we stop a rout?"
(The people from the flat above being tee-totallv out)
"As they control the cellar too, tis Manifestly plain
We can't get to the stopcock 'less we launch a bould Campaign"
Sez I, "Me boys, let's burglarise, with jemmy steps and saw.
If they're consintin' adults, sure 'tis not agin' the Law.
We'll add our share of lustre to the Epic of the Gael,
\nd when we're back in drydock we can hold a 'damaged sale'."
Down rushed the Cataracts and Murricanoes pounded
Be Neptune and yer man MacLir the bookshop nearly dhrownded;
We nailed our Colours to the mast, sang "We shall overcome"
And foiled the lashing elements with burglary and rum.
MONTO
( I lie slang name lor Montgomery Street, the former red-light area of
Dublin.)
WI LL, if you've got a wing-o, take her vp to Ring-o
Where the waxies sing-o all the day;
If you've had your fill of porter and you can't go any futher
Gixe your man the order, back to the quay!
And take her up to Monto, Monto, Monto
lake her up to Monto, langeroo - bum - bum to you!
You've heard of the Duke of Gloucester, the dirty oul' imposter
He got a mot and lost her up the Furry Glen)
He first put on his bowler and he buttoned up his trousers
And he whistled for a growler and he sqys "My man . . .
lake me up to Monto, Monto, Monto
Take me up to Monto, langeroo - bum - bum to you."
When Carey told on Skin-the-Goat, O'Donnell caught him on the boat,
He wished he'd never been afloat, the dirty skite;
It wasn't very sensible to tell on the Invincibles
They stood up for their principles day and night.
And they all went up to Monto, Monto, Monto
lake them up to Monto, langeroo - bum - bum to you!
Now when the C /ar of Russia and the King of Prussia
Landed in the Phoenix in a big balloon
They asked the policemen to play the Wearing of the Green
But the buggers in the depot didn't know the tune.
So they both went up to Monto, Monto, Monto
l ake them both to Monto, langeroo - bum - bum to you!
Now Queen Vic she came to call on us, she wanted to see all of us
I'm glad she didn't fall on us, she's eighteen stone,
"Mister Melord Mayor sez she, is this all you've got to show to me?"
"Why no, ma'am there's some more to see, pog mo thon!'
And he took her up to Monto, Monto, Monto
And he took her up to Monto, Langeroo - bum - bum to you!
TORRAMH AN BHAIRILLE
SCKOLFAD teastas ar shloite Bhaile Mhe Oda mhaisuil mhuintc -
Treoirt do chleachtas gach lo gan lagahd orthu, ol gan cheasna gan chuinse;
Lcouta lannamhar ceolmhar greanmhar eomhach tach calma cuntach,
Is is mor ant-aiteas go deo hheith eatarthu ar thorramh an bhairille a dhiughh.
Htor ni taiscithear ico go dearfa: in or na in earra ni chumhdaid,
Ach mor chuid heathuisce is beoir in aisce gan speois dascaipeaddh ar an nduthaigh;
An dearoil ma (hagann gan Ion 'na spaga do gheobhaidh an casca gan cuntas
Lc hoi gan bacadh go bord na maidne ar thorramh an bhairille a dhuigadh.
Kona dtearmainn deonach tarraingid foirne dalla gan suile
°S is leor do bhacaigh gan treoir go tapaidb 'na dhoid gan bata go siulaid;
Nil stroinse dcalbh on g ( obh go C aiseal na fos i ghfearantas Dhubhagain
Nach seoltar sealed 'na gcombair i dtigh tabhairne ar thorrah an bhairille a
dhilugadh.
IRISH
SONGS
Edited by
PATRICK BOND
RODY
McCORLEY
HO! see the fleet-feet hosts of men
Who speed with faces wan
From farmstead and from fisher's cot
L pon the banks of Bann!
They come with vengeance in their
eyes -
Too late, too late are (hey -
For Rod> McCorley goes to die.
On the Bridge of Toome today.
Oh. Ireland, Mother Ireland,
Vou love them still the best.
The fearless brave who fighting fall
Upon your hapless breast;
But never a one of all your dead
More bravely fell in fray.
Than he who marches to his fate,
On the Bridge of Toome today.
Up the narrow street he stepped.
Smiling and proud and young;
About the hemp rope on his neck
The golden ringlets clung.
There's never a tear in the blue, blue
eyes,
Both glad and bright are they
As Rody McCorley goes to die,
On the Bridge of Toome today.
The grey coat and its sash of green
Were brave and stainless then;
A banner flash beneath the sun
Over the marching men -
The coat hath many a rent this noon
The sash is torn away,
And Rody McCorley goes to die,
On the Bridge of Toome today.
Oh, how his pike flashed to the sun!
Then found a foeman's heart!
Through furious fight, and heavy odds.
He bore a true man's part;
And many a rcd-coat hit the dust
Before his keen pike-play;
But Rody McCorley goes to die,
On the Bridge of Toome today.
Because he loved the Motherland,
Because he loved the Green,
He goes to meet the martyr's fate
With proud and joyous mien,
True to the last, true to the last,
He treads the upward way -
Young Rody McCorley goes to die
On the Bridge of Toome today.
WANT A
SONG BOOK?
Call to . . .
FOUR PROVINCES
BOOKSHOP
246 GRAYS INN ROAD.
LONDON,
WC1
Phone 833 3022
ONLY OUR RIVERS RUN FREE
WHEN apples still grow in November
When blossoms still bloom from each tree
When leaves are still green in December,
It's then that our land will be free.
I wander the hills and the valleys
And still through my sorrow I see
A land that has never known freedom
And only her rivers run free.
I drink to the death of her manhood
Those men who'd rather have died
Than live in the cold chains of bondage
To bring back their rights were denied.
Oh, where are you now that we need you,
What burns where the flame used to be,
Are you gone like the snow of last winter,
And will only our rivers run free?
How sweet is life, but we're crying,
How mellow the wine, but we're dry;
How fragrant the rose, but it's dying
How gentle the wind, but it sights.
What good is youth when its ageing,
What joy is in eyes that can't see,
When there's sorrow in sunshine and flowers
And still only our rivers run free?
- MICHAEL McCONNELL
GREEN FIELDS OF FRANCE
WELL how do you do young Willie McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And rest for a while 'neath the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
When you joined the great fallen in 1916;
I hope you died well and I hope you died clean,
Or young Willie McBride was it slow and obscene?
CHORUS:
Did they beat the drums slowly, did they play the fife lowly
Did they sound the "Death March" as they lowered you down,
Did the band play "The Last Post and Chorus"?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest"?
Did you leave e'er a wife or a sweetheart behind,
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
Although you died back in 1916
In that faithful heart are you forever nineteen?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enshrined forever behind a glass frame
In an old photograph torn, battered and stained
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?
The sun now it shines on the green fields of France
The warm summer breeze makes the red poppies dance,
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no gun firing now.
But here in this graveyard it's still no-man's land,
A thousand white crosses stand mute in the sand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.
Ah young Willie McBride I can't help wonder why
Did all those who died here know why did they die.
And did they believe when they answered the call
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?
For the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and dying were all done in vain.
For young Willie McBride it all happened again
And again and again and again and again.
ERIC BOGLF
THE SPANISH LADY
AS I came down through Dublin City
At the hour of twelve at night.
Who should I see but a Spanish lady
Washing her feet by candlelight?
First she washed them then she dried them
Over a fire of amber coal -
In all my life I ne'er did see
A maid so neat about the sole.
As 1 came back through Dublin City
At the hour of half past eight
Who should I see but a Spanish lady
Brushing her hair in broad day light?
First she tossed it, then she brushed it
On her lap with a silver comb -
In all my life I ne'er did see
A maid so sweet since I did roam.
As I came back through Dublin City
When the sun began to set ,
Who should I see but a Spanish lady
Catching a moth in a golden net?
When she saw me, then she fled me
Lifting her petticoat over her k»ee -
In all my life I ne'er did see
A maid so blithe as the Spanish Ia4y.
i
March 1997
From Kavanagb
to Deane
"The Faber Book of
Contemporary Irish
Poetry". Edited by Paul
Muldoon. Published by
Faber. 416pp. Price £5.95.
ESCHEWING the temptationto play
safe and include just a couple of
poems by countless poets, this careful
and intelligent anthology provides
instead a generous selection of the
work of ten established poets.
With predictably generous space
devoted to both Patrick Kavanagh
and Louis MacNeice, the collection
continues with Thomas Kinselfa,
John Montague, Michael Longley,
Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Paul
Durcan, Tom Baulin and finally
Medbh McGuckian.
A short prologue precedes the
poems: an extract from a discussion
between F. R. Higgins and Louis
MacNeice, broadcast in 1939. "Irish
poetry," stated Higgins, "remains a
creation happily .fundamentally
rooted in rural civilisation, yet aware
of and in touch with the elementals of
the future." This is most evidently
true of the poetry of Patrick
Kavanagh. Besides the complete
rendering of "The Great Hunger",
there are many Kavanagh poems here
that bear witness to his startling
originality.
Heaney has said that Kavanagh
"wrested.his idiom bare-handed out
of a literary nowhere" and by
anthology's end we can clearly see,
Kavanagh's continuing influence on
contemporary Irish poetry — not
least on Seamus Heaney himself.
MacNewe has hisiown particular
view of • thfr poet — "a sensitive
instrument designed • to record
anything which interests his mind or
afreets his emotions." Thfeselection of
his work' certainty includes poems of
such 'occasional' nature ('Snow' or
The Brandy Glass') yet MacNeice
speaks as warmly and tnovinglyas any
about Ireland, as the extract from
"Autumn Journal" shows.
John Montague's accessible lyrics
are in many ways reminiscent of
Kavanagh's themes and, in thinking
of themes, there is throughout a
recurrence' of poems about fathers
and, less often, motiiers, which makes
an interesting sub-colIfcction of lyrics
that teW fascinating stories of
unhappier(lives..
Heaney) surely the most popular of
contemporary Irish poets, is well
represented by poems spanning all his
collection ending with an extract from
the lengthy."Station Island."
IRISH DEMOCRAT
- irm
Father and Son
Celtic Knot work by Iain
Bain, 112pp. £10.95.
Published by Constable.
THIS new book on Celtic knotwork is
not the best, but it is an addition to a
subject that is fast attracting the
attention of artists and craftworkers
who appreciate Celtic Art. Certainly
the demand for the Celtic design
greetings cards produced by the
Northampton Connolly Association
continues to grow with the interest in
our design and printing workshops.
But where did this beautiful
intricate art form originate? Persian
art is not dissimilar and we know that
the first tribes to arrive in Ireland
The Perversion of Science
and Technology in Ireland.
By Derry Kellcher. Price
£2.50. pps/48 Justice
Books.
IN this excellent pamphlet Kellacher
deplores the fact that scientists and
technologists play a subordinate role
to accountants and salesmen in
industry. It was C. P. Snow who tried
to alert western capitalism to the
dangers of science and art becoming
two alien cultures.
The dominance of accountants and
Stockbrokers over engineers and
scientists in Britain is well known as is
the disastrous neglect of British
industry in favour of the City: Mrs
Thatcher and Nigel Lawson have a
marked preference for service
industries and tourism while working
class lads are crying out for
engineering apprenticeships.
Mr Kellacher points to the same
tendencies in Ireland. He describes
Irish cultural and political life as antiscientific.
He claims that the-antiscientific
temper of public life in both
countries stem in the first place from
British educational policy,—
"designed to create a species of home
and colonial administrators to occupy
posts in the army, the judiciary, the
civil service and the police."
Kellacher criticises the Romantic
poets for failing "to understand that
Derek Mahon's illuminating poem
"In darrowdore Churchyard; at the
graveof Louis MacNeice" provides its
own insights into the earlier poet's
wodb- And- it - is - another- marked
feature of tfceoolloetion,ibis constant
intcr-fefeml ofc«h6pootty wilhpoems
ubots,' wand far saofckxhert
MMbh McOuckJM* makes an -
interesting fiitaMnohiatori-asthe onlyfemale
poet. Her work -^occasionally
inspired by .diverse historical figures
— teases and surprises.
Having made the brave decision to
stick out his neck and settle for just ten
poets, Paul Muldoon has succeeded in
selecting a coherent and provoking
anthology.
C.P.
trom the middle east. Our
forbears carved their brilliantly
twined and twisted knots; plaits and
key patterns in stone. Later on metals
(gold and silver) jewels and
parchment, demonstrated to fine
effect in ancient illuminated
manuscripts. The best examples are
the Book of Kelts and the Book of
Durrow in Trinity College, Dublin.
For those interested in learning the
art of how to plan and create grids,
cells, knotwork and interlacing the
best book is Celtic Art. the methods
of contraction by George Bain. This
book by the authors son is, as I said a
useful addition to this fascinating
subject.
Peter Mulligan
the better world they were seeking
could only be realised through further
developments in science and
technology. Apart from Wordsworth
who was a friend of the Irish
mathamatician Hamilton Rowen,
Kellacher says "The Romantics were
however, in the main stubbonly antiscientific
in temper."
The author quotes from a Dr R.
Johnstone's article in Crane Bag to
show the same tendencies existed even
in the hedge schools where there was a
leaning towards classical learning.
Later in the same article Thomas
Davis is castigated for ignoring the
presence of scientists at a local
meeting when he reported it in the
Nation. Kellacher detects the same
anti-scientific spirit even among those
who opposed entry intothe European-
Common Market. -
This is such a complex subject that
treatment in a small booklet only
raises ten times as many questions as it
has space to answer. Could the author
not be induced to expand this
important theme into a book of a
hundred thousand words?
The second 4 part of the booklet
deals with Mr Kellacher's plans to
convert power stations into
generators not only of electricity but
also for heat which could be used for
adjacentcommunities: Could they not
also supply hot water for baths and
washing up in the summer? Popular
support for such useful projects could
I think force a change Of heart on the
part of vested interests.
G. Curran
SUBSCRIPTION COUPON
• Post to 244/246 GRAYS INN ROAD, WC1
Please send) m* the "IRISH DEMOCRAT" each
Name
!, :
Jl
Address
- >
*i?
K..
! i . . . . . .
monttrfor a year: I enclose-£5.
m
1»
Some designs from the Book of Kelts.
A man in the jaws of
a beast. Two birds.
The Jp symbol is on cheek and hip of the
man. Note two right feet as in Egypttan
Art.
Page Seven
Dr»wn by George Bain.
"late XIV
Plate XH.
Actual width ',< inch Actua) ^dth |% jnches
A man s heaa in a beast's mouth.
The beast's hind legs and tail are
at the foot of the pag*.
A beast, head, top-knot, neck,
foreleg, two hlndlegs and tail
ERRORS LAID BARE
Trial and Error. The Maguires
The Guildford Pub Bombingv
and British Justice. Robert Kee
Hamish Hamilton. £10.95.
READERS interested in a detailed
and factual investigation of these
cases can confidently be recommeded
Robert Kee's book. Irish people owe a
debt of gratitude to the author and
also Ludovic Kennedy for their
unstinting efforts to uncoverinjustice.
So far thepressures have resulted in
the Birmingham Six case being
referred to the Court of Appeal, with
results yet to be determined. It is to be
hoped that the case wiU be heard with
the minimum of delay.
It is curious how doubt eventually
filters through and in time possible
errors of investigation and judicial
approach are laid bare. A common
feature is that the public rage at an
event, condemned by all, pressurises
the police to find culprits. From there,
confessions form the basis of later
conviction and as time goes on it
becomes even more difficult to have
the process reversed, as reputations
become involved.
girl
Cuckoo by Linda Anderson,
pp 160 (The Bodley Head £8.95).'
SECOND novels are traditionally
recognised as the most crucial
moment in a writer's career,
particularly in the wake of a successful
start. Linda Anderson, whose first
novel was short-listed for two prizes,
presents us with a wide-ranging
canvas as we follow the thoughts and
actions of our heroine, Fran
McDowell.
Beginning in May 1982, we find
Fran, a Belfast woman of Protestant
background, starting to turn against
the increasingly hostile world she
inhabits. Pushed to the limits at work
by her sexist boss,-she makes her ex.t
with the memorable line, "If crass
behaviour is linked to the menstrual
cycle, how do you explain yours?"
Moving into a kind of limbo
without work or purpose (the least
convincing part of the novel), Fran
falls prey to a loud-mouthed West
Indian. The resulting pregnancy
succeeds in concentrating Fran's
mind as she takes control of her life
once more.
It is here that the novel broadens and
diversifies. What follows is always
interesting, frank and readable, but
one might have hoped for less
•netadMOM than this latter half
prodMM.-Noasthakw,'this is a writer
to return to again.
C.P.
In the case of the Maguires much
rested on the scientific tests for
nitroglycerine. These tests have been
devised by John Yallop who gave
evidence for the defence. He said that
in his view the substance on hands and
gloves was not the explosive. The
Judge, Mr Justice Donaldson, in his
summing up said it would be quite
unsafe to convict unless the jury were
satisfied that the substance was
nitroglycerine. In the circumstances,
and bearing in mind the doubt since
cast on the tests in question, it seems
perverse not to reopen the case of the
Maguires, or better still, to grant a free
pardon. In the Guildford case, a
convicted IRA man, Brendan Dowd,
later confessed to the bombing and
this exonerated those convicted for it.
One can only hope that the
Birmingham Six will be cleared and
that continuing public pressure will
lead to those other cases being
reopened. That is the only way justice
can be done to those convicted. The
status of British justice would also
benefit. As Robert Kee concludes:
"Let Justice be done though the
heavens fall." The heavens would^
probably continue much as before but
perhaps some reputations might not
be quite the same.
Dermot Htnes
FIRE
Biography of
MARY Mac SWINEY
By
CHARLOTTE H. FALLON
At
Four Provinces
Bookshop
-t