A CAROL OF COUNTY CLARE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 6, 7 November 1890, Page 19

A CAROL OF COUNTY CLARE.

By Thomas S. Clbaby.

—■♦>- Air—"Billy Byrne."

Onb Sunday morning early in the autumn-time of year, When the ear was in the barley and tne woods were turning sere, When streams that all the summer in their gladness sparkled by Grew drumble with the Bhadows that portended winter nigh. There came with pomp and prance and pride, sent special by the Crown, Both police, spies, and soldiers into famous Ennis town, A-searching out high treason, for they said if anywhere They'd ever come to find it 'twas in saucy county Clare. They sent around a warning, then, that nobody should take A word above a whisper, the liberty to speak ; They boldly next proceeded out to green Ballycoree, Where, as they'd been informed before, a gathering was to be ; With guns and armj waggons tbe old hill they did surround, So that they would be suie to catch each traitor on toe ground ; And aU the subs, and sergeants, too, ia rage were heard to swear They'd punctuate with bludgeons every skull in County Clare . The day grew slowly older and the rain came pouring down Without the slightest rev'rence for this army of the Crown, It spattered cap and helmet, and it soaked them to the skin, But still they watched and waited fir the talkiDg to begin ; The sorra sinner came the way but Pat Moloney's pig, Who, feeling quite astonished at their warlike rout and rig, *tood silent on the hilltop, wondering what had brought them there, For pigs have wondrous wisdom, boys, in rattling County Clare. That pig he gave a grunt or two, as if to ease his mind. The same as London aldermen when they have fairly dined ; Then having settled equarely all the points, straight down he walked Unto the army's coo iel, and 'twas thus to him he talked— " Most potent, grave, and rev-er-eni, there's somethin' seems amiss, If I'm to dbraw conclusions from what • doth appear in this ' • An 1 tho' I'm only called a pig, I might set matthers square, For pigs, you see, aint children, or, at laste, they're not in Clare. "You're done and dished complately, as myself may be one day, But you can save your bacon if you heed to what I pay. You've come to stop the meetin', and you've done it brave andbould, But hurry home, acushla, orye'll get your death of cowld. The people ien'r half as green as Balfour takes them for, Tempora mutantur, an' they're not the fools they wor, The meetin' that you want to stop — it isn't here but there,' The pig here waved his crubeen to another side of Clare. 0, boys, alanni, if you saw the charge the heroes made, It beat Sedan or Jena, Balaklava or Belgrade, They rode, they ran, they roared, and seemed the more to froth and fret, To think the day they were so fooled bad come about bo wet ; An' when they got beyond the Cross— O, Mose9, what a crowd They met with Dillon and O'Brien, cheering long and loud, The meeting all was over, that's why Balfour gets m queer, When any gorsoon hints about that day in county Claie. — Irish Paper