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IRISH SONGS AND LYRICS 489 |
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SHAMUS O'BRIEN'
A Tale of Ninety-eight, as related by an Irish Peasant
J
UST after the war, in the year Ninety-Eight, As soon as the boys were all scattered and bate, 'Twas the custom, whenever a peasant was caught, To hang him by trial—barring such as was shot. There was trial by jury goin' on by daylight, And the martial law hangin' the lavings by night: It's them was hard times for an honest gossoon : If he missed in the judges, he'd meet a Dragoon; And whether the judge or the soldiers gave sentence, The divil a much time they allowed for repentance. An' the many's the fine Boy was then on his keeping, With small share of restin', or atin', or sleepin', An' because they loved Erin, and scorned to sell it, A prey for the bloodhound, a mark for the bullet, Unsheltered by night, and unrested by day, With the heath for their barrack, revenge for their pay. An' the bravest and hardiest Boy of them all
1W. R. Le Fanu in his Seventy Years of Irish Life, 1903, says: " (It) was written in a very few days in the year 1840, and sent me day by day by my brother as he wrote it. I quickly learned it by heart, and now and then recited it. The scraps of paper on which it was written were lost, and years after, when my brother wished for a copy, I had to write it out from memory for him. One other copy I gave to Samuel Lover, who recited it in America, and notwithstanding his disÂclaimer of the authorship it was more than once attributed to him." |
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