Travelling People

We are  known as travelling people and by many other names as well,

About out lifetime on the roads in verse  I strive to tell

You'll find us 'neath the hedgerows throughout this little land,

And we say a prayer in silence for every helping hand

Our best friends are the rural folk or let's call them farming boys,

Without their pastures after dark our ponies can't survive.

If they are grazing still when morning comes, don't rush off to complain

A shake of "10-10-20" will bring on that grass again .

With a tractor now at every house the working horse is no more,

There is not an ounce of horse hair behind the stable door.

We collected scrap and old antiques and placed them on our shelves,

But now the crafty farmers sell the lot themselves.

The times are changing rapidly, there's a rumour we'll be housed,

And living right among you all, our hopes they get aroused

Our conditions do not shame us and we seldom break the law,

For the babe who came at Christmas time was born too in straw.

Have you thought about us when the northern winds blow,

And little nine and ten year olds tread barefoot in the snow?

And as you toss 'neath eiderdowns our bedclothes may be thin,

Sure we cannot plug a blanket to a hazel or a whin'

To camp in Co. Cavan, there's no place like Cornatean,

For even if you strip a quick they never once complain.

But at Killeshandra or up in Bruce, they raise an awful din

For they treasure all their hedges there, although they are but whins

If accepted in the community we will do a full day's toll,

We'll send our children to the school, to Mrs Lynch and Mrs. Coyle

No more our women folk will beg or take from beneath their shawls

A basket filled with combs and pins and scented camphor balls.

Call us Nomads, Gypsies Tinkers Travellers as well,

We bear no grudge to any man, the truth to you I tell.

But if we have to wander on and face the winds of change

I hope we meet in Heaven above where every man is the same.

Memories

I journey down my memory lane of fifty years or more

When by ass and cart I travelled down to that famous co-op store.

 I met so many farmers there when I made that journey down

Where clasped hands span the archway, in Killeshandra town.

When times were hard and money scarce, with mouths to feed go leor

There was a place that gave relief, 'twas Killeshandra Store.

With Six Star Flour and Heart's Delight to make the soda cake

Thro' many a night by the fireside, a slice of it we'd take.

The donkey then turned homewards, its mission was complete,

With pollard, meal and bluestone, and a brush to sweep the street.

For payment there was no demand and come the early Spring

When the grass did grow and the milk did flow, the creamery took it in,

Those goods were got on credit, the reason I’ll be frank,

There was no money in the purse and we'd nothing in the bank.

But our Co-op knew us, thro' and thro'. and our word it was our bond,

And we'd pay our way thro' the Summer days with the milk that left our land.

In the Press there's many letters now from Tom and Dick and Harry,

Praising the flying Superman that everyone calls Larry.

If he gets his way we'll rue the day with our creamery gone forever

And buried too will be the fruit of our father's great endeavours.

Why criticize the Co-op it has served you all so well,

Many of you got credit too, If the truth you’d tell

Your trailers there were loaded up with meal, manure, the lot

But it’s a true old saying eaten bread is soon forgot.

Let's keep the Co-op going, it has served us down the years

And it can still be ours, of that we have no fear.

Three cheers for those who led us then, whose hearts were strong as steel

James Gannon, Francis Flanagan and that Corkman John O'Neill.

.

My Impressions of Football in 1900

Way back

When the heroes of that day

 Prepared on Sunday afternoon

Their Gaelic game to play,

They wore no togs but hobnailed boots;

Each man wore a wide cap -

The man the guardian of the net

Very often wore a hat.

The Mac Finns came down from Maghera,

The O'Connells from Drumlane,

The first Ulsters from Ballyconnell town,

And the Reds from Cornafean.

Their transport wasn't very fast

When. their fixture was away,

For they had to travel many miles

Upon a horse and dray.

Then as their play surged to and fro,

Sure many a throat did roar

As the team who trailed that single point

Tried for that vital score.

And often too there was a fight

You could easily come to harm,

For many a man stood on the ditch

An ash plant tucked 'neath his arm

If to Breffni Park these men of old

Could come this present day

To see the players of our time

Go out to join the fray

In their colours of the rainbow

Their hair so long in curls

They'd say, achone, where are the men

Or are these a team of girls?

So now, my friends the years are on,

It's soon I'll have to go,

I'm listening every day that breaks

To hear yon whistle blow

But when I go for judgement

To that place you know the name

It will not matter what the score:

I'll say I'm from Cornafean.