Page 340 - Demo

340 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
on Grosse Island in the St. Lawrence. A report from the Montreal Emigrant Society says: “From Grosse Island, the great charnel-house of victimized humanity, up to Port Sarnia, and along the borders of our magnificent river, upon the shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie, wherever the tide of emigration has extended, are to be found the final resting-places of the sons and daighters of Erin, an unbroken chain of graves, where repose fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, in one commingled heap, without a tear bedewing the soil, or a stone marking the spot. Twenty thousand and upwards thus went down to their graves.”
They are going, going, going, from the valleys and the hills,
They are leaving far behind them heathery moor and mountain rills,
All the wealth of hawthorn hedges where the brown thrush sways and trills.
They are going shy-eyed cailins and lads so straight and tall, From the purple peaks of Kerry, from the crags of wild Imaal, From the greeing plains of Mayo, and the glens of Donegal.
They are leaving pleasant places, shores with snowy sands outspread; Blue and lonely lakes a –stirring when the wind stirs overhead; Tender living hearts that love them, and the graves of kindred dead. Oh, Kathleen Ni Houlihan, your road’s a thorny way,
And ’tis a faithful soul would walk the flints with you for aye, Would walk thye sharp and cruel flints until his locks were grey.
So some must wander to the East and some must wander West, Some seek the white wastes of the North, and some a Southern nest; Yet never shall they sleep so sweet as on their mother’s breast.
They are going, going, going, and we cannot bid them stay:
Their fields are now the stranger’s, where the strnager’s cattle stray, Oh! Kathleen Ni Houlihan, your way’s a thorny way!
(Ethna Carbery from ‘The Four Winds of Eirinn’)
To be continued...
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