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IRISH SONGS AND LYRICS 267 |
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They can read you that riddle in proud Innishowen. Hurra for the Spsemen1 of proud Innishowen ! — Long live the wild Seers of stout Innishowen ! — May Mary, our mother, be deaf to their moan Who love not the promise of proud Innishowen ! |
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THE IRISH RAPPAREES
A peasant ballad
" When Limerick was surrendered and the bulk of the Irish army took service with Louis XIV, a multitude of the old soldiers of the Boyne, Aughrim, and Limerick, preferred remaining in the country at the risk of righting for their daily bread; and with them some gentlemen, loath to part from their estates or their sweethearts. The English army and the English law drove them by degrees to the hills, where they were long a terror to the new and old settlers from England, and a secret pride and comfort to the trampled peasantry, who loved them even for their excesses. It was all they had left to take pride in."—Author's note.
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IGH SHEMUS he has gone to France and left his crown behind :— 111 luck be theirs, both day and night, put runnin' in his mind ! Lord Lucan2 followed after, with his slashers brave and true,
1 Sptzmen, an Ulster and Scotch term signifying a person gifted with " second sight "—a prophet.
2 After the Treaty of Limerick, Patrick Sarsfield, Lord Lucan, sailed with the Brigade to France, and was killed while leading his countrymen to victory at the battle of Landen, in the Low Countries, July 29, 1693. |
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