Poems by Arthur Griffith

**Chapter II.

**A selection of poems and recitations by Arthur Griffith on the general topic of Dublin.

**Twenty Men from Dublin Town

**By Arthur Griffith

As the Insurrection of 1798 ended some United Irishmen left Dublin to band with Michael Dwyer in the mountains.

Twenty men from* *Dublin town,

Riding on the mountain side,

Fearless of the Saxon frown,

Twenty brothers true and tried.

Blood flows in the city streets,

There the green is lying low,

Here the emerald standard greets

Eyes alike of friend and foe. *

Chorus:

*Fly the city, brothers tried,

Join us on the mountain side;

Where we’ve England’s power defied

Twenty men from Dublin town.

Twenty men from Dublin town,

Full of love and full of hate,

Oh! our chief, our Tone, is down,

Hand of God, avenge his fate!

Joy it is where’er we meet

Redcoats on the mountain track,

Ah! as deer they must be fleet

If they get to Dublin back. *

Chorus:

*Twenty men from Dublin town,

Every night around the fire

Brimmlng methers toss we down

To our Captain, Michael Dwyer

Slainte, Michael, brave and true,

Then there rings the wild “Hurrah!”

As we drink dear land, to you, Eire,

slainte geal go bráth.

Chorus:

The Pride of Pimlico

Come all ye broken-hearted ones and listen to my lay

About a lovely damsel, as fair as this blest May,

Who’s caused much teats and sorrow and grief and heartfelt woe,

It’s Kitty Quinn I’m speaking of, the Pride of Pimlico.

It’s just about a month ago unto this place she came,

And set our hearts all blazing up in love’s undying flame,

And made of every other lass about the place a foe,

Because she took their sweethearts, did the Pride of Pimlico.

Poor Paddy Burke, the tailor, now can’t do a stroke of work,

Nor Billy Shee; the handyman, nor steady Jack M’Gurk,

And if you ax the reason, all they’ll answer you is “Oh,

It’s all because of Kitty Quinn, the Pride of Pimlico.”

There’s Murphy, the teetotaller, he’s gone upon the spree,

And Keogh, the whiskey drinker, now is taking milk and tea,

He’s given up John Jameson, and likewise Power and Roe,

Because his heart’s distracted by the Pride of Pimlico.

Old Jimmy Kane, the miser, that no one could get around,

And young Tom Ray who owns a forge and near a hundred pound.

And Mat M’Cann whose father keeps the Irish Waxwork Show

Are raving night and day about the Pride of Pimlico.

It’s time the polis saw to it; it soon will be too late,

An’ divil a man in all the Coombe will have a solid pate;

Or soon beyond in Ridley’s, a sight of awful woe,

You’ll see ten thousand victims of the Pride of Pimlico.

This piece is declared to be “a love-poem” by Professor Atkinson - a distinguished Trinity don who had recently attracted attention by an attack on the Irish language and our older literature which he declared to be, “largely silly or indecent.” The skit seems, however, to be rather directed against the “West British” snobs or *seoníní *of the period than against the Professor. **

Lucinda**

Oh! lovely Lucy Lanigan, my distant twinkling star!

She walks in beauty every day through haughty, blue Rathgar,

She wears a frock from Chester and a London blouse and hat,

And she owns a British pugdog and a doaty Manxland cat. Oh! Lucinda!

My beaming, gleaming star,

I would that I were good enough

To dwell in dear Rathgar.

Lucinda’s so respectable the only songs she’ll sing

Are “Genevieve,” “They Follow Me” and “Heaven Bless the King!”

She reads the penny novelettes, the *Leader *too, she’ll scan -

But she shudders at the mention of the horrid *Irishman.

*Oh! Lucinda!

My beaming, gleaming star,

I would that I were good enough

To dwell in dear Rathgar.

Her pa’s a nice old gentleman, he lives beyond the gates

Of Dublin, where his business is, that he may dodge the rates.

Her ma collects old clothes and tracts for heathens in Hong Kong,

And her brother says “Bay Jove!” and plays at croquet and ping-pong.

Oh! Lucinda!

My beaming, gleaming star,

I would that I were good enough

To dwell in dear Rathgar.

Then farewell, Oh! Lucinda, although my heart must break,

I’ll go down to the Dodder and I’ll jump in for your sake,

For they say, and, faith, I’ll risk it, that when they’ve crossed the bar,

The souls of all the *seoníní *foregather in Rathgar.

Oh! Lucinda!

I’m off to Donnybrook

To drown myself to live for you

And be your faithful spook.

The *Leader *was a vigorous advocate of Irish Ireland and not in. the least likely to appeal to *seoníní, *upon whom it poured scorn. But Griffith must have his joke.

The *United Irishman, *Griffith’s paper, in which these verses appeared.

At this time Rathmines and Rathgar were outside the jurisdiction of the Dublin Corporation.

The “Poet’s Agency, Limited,” concludes with a piece of rollicking drollery, introduced as follows:- “You’ve gone over to the mystics. If instead of writing about hazel trees and salmon (a reference to Yeats’s early poetry) you would sit down and write something like “The Thirteenth Lock” - What? You have something like it. Wait till I read it out so that I can hear it.” **

The Spooks of the Thirteenth Lock**

Every night of the year about twelve of the clock,

The spirits and spooks of the dread Thirteenth Lock

Sit swinging their bodies a-this and that way

And singing in chorus “Ri tooril li lay.”

Ri Tooril li looril, ri tooril li lay,

Oh! what would you think, sir, and what would you say,

If you met with a ghost singing “Tooril li lay?”

There once was a captain so gallant and bold,

He scorned all the warnings of young and of old,

“Do you think, you poor onshucks,” he’d scornfully say,

“That I’d fear a dead ghost singing Tooril li lay?”

But one night at twelve coming home from Athy,

He halted his ship when the lock he came nigh,

And he leered at the ghosts sitting there by the say

All mournfully singing “Ri tooril li lay.”

When he came to the Harbour, his wife good and true

Says “Jamsie, my darling, O! say that it’s you?

And what will I get for your dinner to-day?”

“O! Janie!” he answered, “Ri tooril li lay.”

Then off to the manager’s office he went

The log of his voyage to him to present,

The manager, noddinng, says “Very fine day.”

“Oh! aye,” says the Captain, “Ri tooril li lay.”

The manager jumped like a man on a tack

And he ups and he gives me poor captain the sack,

And home to his wife went the sailor away,

A-sighing and sobbing “Ri tooril li lay.”

When he got to his home sure he took to his bed

And to questions they asked and to all that they said,

He just wagged his head in a sorrowful way

And mournfully answered “Ri tooril li lay.”

The doctor was sent for and just shook his head!,

“The divil a know I know what ‘tis,” he said:

“There’s no such disase in the Pharmacopay

That I ever heard tell of as Tooril li lay.”

That evening at midnight the bold captain died,

With his poor weeping wife and her friends by his side,

And the last words he said when they asked him to pray

Were “Tooril li-looril, ri tooril li lay.”

The “critic” concludes: “My dear Shaun, I am glad to see you have relapsed into true poetry.” **

Valuable Recipe for the Emerald Isle**

Would you be deemed a man of wit

And in Shoneenia make a hit,

Sit down and write a funny play;

I’ll tell you shortly what’s the way;

First take a Cockney without “h’s,”

Dress him in what he calls “knee-braiches,

And crownless hat with pipe in band,

And put a blackthorn in his hand;

Then make him say to all his neighbours:

“Och! tare-an’-ouns” and Oh! be japers!”

Take next an’ ‘Arriet and attire her

Just as old Charteris would admire her;

Then make her squeal and kick and prance,

And there you’ve got an Irish dance.

Lug half a dozen others in

Whose business is to jump and grin,

Next sprinkle nicely through the play

Suggestions culled from Rabelais,

And jests in Britain still much told

That in Boccaccio’s days were old,

And garnish well with “Pillalu,”

“Bedad,” “Begorra,” “Wirrasthrue,”

Shure, musha, if you’re shtuck for chaff,

“Ochone” will allus rise a laugh.

Drop in some whiskey and shillelagh,

And whoo, hurroo, ‘twill make up gaily!

Now take your play and with it go

To Chancery-lane or Westland Row,

Herr Schwartzengard or Signor Ninni

Will find you notes for half a guinea;

And next assume a winning smile and

Pop off at once to Mister Eyland*

Should that great man your play befriend

Your troubles then are at an end;

Nor should you fear financial knocks as

Smut always pays in Dublin boxes.

Should Shakespeare, Ibsen, Moliere come

The Dublin boxes stay at home,

But when there’s coarseness and a ballet

The Dublin boxes nobly rally.

Should any wretched gallery gods

Presume to hiss what skunk applauds

The arm of Britain’s mighty law

Will forth its ‘venging truncheon draw

And knock the fellows on the noddles

For being such old mollycoddles

The Reptile Press will sing your praises,

(Champagne’s required, though, in some cases)

And dons from College Green locality - Apollo, Tony, Old Morality - **

Will shake you gravely by the hand

And hail you credit to the land;

Stout matrons ask you up to share

In tea-and-talk on Merrion Square,

And ancient maidens boast “He dines

With us” in Dalkey and Rathmines.

Probably Mr. Charles Hyland, manager of the Gaiety Theatre.

Professors Mahaffy, Traill and Atkinson. See note to The Conarirators.

The Song of the Dublin Fusilier**

(Left behind, wounded, to die by the British in their retreat from Dundee.*)

“If ye wear the coat of England,” sez me mother wance to me,

“The curse of God will fall upon your head;

A thraitor to your country and your father you will be.”

But I little heeded what the mother said.

Me rather - Heaven rest him! died twelve years ago in jail,

A Fenian - and they used him like a hound.

Still, I took the English shilling, though I knew me mother’d wail -

God curse him - when the sergeant kem around.

“I’ll larn to be a sojer, and some day I’ll have a chance

To fight for Ireland’s freedom like a man,

When help is coming over here from Russia or from France

An’ I’ll be thrainect,” sez I “then. That’s the plan.”

Yes, I thought that I was clever to join the English foe,

And make them larn me how to shoot and dhrill,

Oh little did I think then - oh little did I know

I’d be sent out here ould Ireland’s friends to kill.

“Charge up, boys,” sez the Colonel, and I charged straight up the hill

To strike down freemen battling for their right -

To make meself a murdherer - for England’s sake to kill,

The pathriots standing out agin her might.

An’ a freeman’s bullet struck me, and I fell upon the ground

An’ they brought me to the camp back here to die,

An’ now the dogs have left me - for Joubert ** is coming round,

An’ without a dhrink of water here I lie.

Yes, The curse of God is on me, an’ I broke me mother’s heart,

An’ me father’s curse is on me, too, as well,

But wan thing cheers me still - when me life to-night I part

I’II meet the man that listed me in hell.

*Dundee in South Africa, scene of a Boer victory over the British.

** Joubert, a Boer General.

General Index .