rkhouse, I listened to two old women arguing about the merits
r's house, opposite the big tree, that he used to stop when he was in Kilchreest. I often saw him; but I didn't take much notice of him then, being a child; it was after that I used to hear so much abo
rom where Callinan was. And he was a nice respectable man, too, with cows and sheep, and a kind man. He would never put anything that wasn't nice into a poem, and he would
bitter; and if he had anything against a person, he'd give him a great lacerating. But t
f his own back door, and make a poem about the four quarters of the earth. I tell you, you would stand in the snow to listen to Callinan!' But, just then
how closely he was in the old tradition of the bards, the wandering poets of two thousand years or more. His satire, his praises, his competitions with other poets were the dread and the pride
father wouldn't have liked that. Someway it doesn't bring luck.' And another man says: 'My father often told me about Raftery. He was someway gifted, and people were afraid of him. I was often told by men that gave him a lift in their car when they overtook him now and again, that if he asked their name, they wouldn't give it, for fear he might put it in a song.' And another man says: 'There was a friend of my father's was driving his car on the road one day, and he saw Raftery, but he didn't let on to see him. But when he was passing, Raftery said: "There was never a soldier marching but would get his billet. But the rabbit has an enemy in the ferret;" so then the man said in a hurry, "Oh, Mr. Raftery, I never knew it was you: won't you get up and take a seat in the car?"' A girl in whose praise he had made a song, Mary Hynes, of Ballylee, died young, and had a
cart. There were people all the way along the road, and they were calling on him to break through the crowd, and they'd save him; and some of the soldiers were Irish, and they called back that if he did they'd only fire their guns in the air; but he made no attempt, but went to the gallows quiet enough. There was a man in Gort was telling me he saw it, planting potatoes he was at Seefin that day. It was in the year 1820; and Raftery was there at the hanging, and he made a song about it. The first verse of the song said: "Wasn't that the good tree, that wouldn't let any branch that was on it fall to the ground?" He meant by that that he didn't give up the names of the other Whiteboys. And at the end he called down judgment from God on the two Z
part of
y the same day as when the only Son of Mary was on the tree. I have hope in the Son of God, my grie
th on it; and may the flood rise over it; that much is no sin at all, O bright God; and I pray w
he fish do not leap in the water; there is no dew on the grass, and the birds do not sing
of God! He was that with us always, without a lie. But he died a good Irishman; and he never bowed the
ar Irish on a flag above your head. A thousand and eight hundred and sixteen, and four put
he hurled at the head of another poet, Seaghan Burke. But these were, I think,
e some
st, bishop, or clerk. Seven years may you be senseless and wi
be turned back like gums; that your legs may lose feeling from the kn
fever may stretch you nine times, and that particularly at the time of Easter ('because,' it is explained, '
row or moisture in your bones. That clay may never be put over yo
, and the curses of the crowd. May dragon's gall and poiso
s: 'Oranmore without merriment. A little town in scarce fields-a broken little
members him says: 'He didn't care much about big houses. Just if they were people he liked, and that he was friendly with them, he would be
t were softer
ither butte
s sourer than ap
tery got from B
em on mules, and some of them unruly, and the biggest of them were smaller than asses, and the master cracking them with a stick;' 'but he went no further than that, because he remembered the good treatment used to be there in former times, and he wouldn't have said that much if it w
t by the lying Peter Glynn. Peter Glynn, the liar, in his little house by the side o
erwards he came down, and said: "Where is the cabbage man?" and asked him to make some more verses about it; but whether he did or not I don't know.' And another time, I am told: 'A priest wanted to teach him the rite of lay baptism; for there were scattered houses a priest might take a long time getting to, away from the roads, and certain persons were authorized to give the rite. So the priest put his hat in Raftery's hand, and told him the words to say; but it is what he said: "I baptize you without either foot or hand, without salt or tow, b