Doc on 1 - 6sept2024

In 1957, a documentary called "A Poet and His People" was released, focusing on the blind poet Antony Raftery. Raftery's poems were written in Gaelic and were known for their melancholy and wry twist. However, it was discovered that some of the poems attributed to Raftery were actually the work of someone else. Raftery's verse, both in Gaelic and translated, gained popularity and reached a wider audience. Despite his blindness, Raftery traveled as a musician and was known for his poetry. He had patrons who supported him, and his talent and personality left a lasting impact on the community. Raftery's life and work are still remembered in parts of East Galway. RAINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN A në një vërhkati lësbihës e kahëtë Fëshë mi xalë o ginnon Now, when we started Actil, I think the first four programmes were hosted by our resident poet, Seán Ó Cuistla, and his class. And we looked in great detail at a poem, or a nagal of bertse, called Rathdraí agus an file. A nagal of bertse is a two-hander, as Brendan Flynn described it, a conversation, usually a witty one, between two people in the form of a poem. And that was about Rathdraí agus an file, a man that he met two centuries after his death. So I thought that it would be nice to go around the full circle, I suppose, and restart our winter series of documentaries here on Conamara Community Radio with one of the oldest documentaries that I have come across in the radio archives anywhere. It's a documentary from 1957 entitled A Poet and His People. It's from the RTE Dock on One series. So I think it's a great way to start off our visits again to various archives and to various other sources for documentaries to bring you here every Friday afternoon. Just to recall before we move to the programme today, we started the documentary series about three years ago here on Conamara Community Radio because we had come across several local documentaries, mainly from RTE, but some from other sources as well, and we wanted to bring these to our own listeners. They went back, some of them as far as the 1970s, and in particular many of them were about our local, our offshore islands, Inis Boffin, Inis Torc, North and South, and Clare Island and the Iron Islands, of course, down the way. And then we kept the series going, we expanded out to programmes from other parts of Ireland and indeed from all over the world. So we hope to do the same again, we'll go to Dock on One series where there's over a thousand documentaries, and hopefully more this time we'll go to the other community radio stations all over Ireland. We've had programmes from Clare Morris FM, from Roscommon FM, and we hope to get many more programmes from our sister and brother stations up and down the country. We also will go to podcasts and we will go to radio stations as far away as Scotland and Cape Breton and Newfoundland, and the west coast of, or the east coast of Canada, which is a very, very, has a great tradition of community and local radio broadcasting as well. But this week we're going back to 1957 to a poet and his people, a documentary on the great blind poet from Mayo, Antony or Raftery. This programme is about a man who died in County Galway 120 years ago. To most of us now, I'm afraid his name may mean very little. At best, perhaps a few lines of verse remembered vaguely from a school anthology. Twelve short lines which have been translated by Douglas Hyde. I am Raftery the poet, full of hope and love, with eyes that have no light, with gentleness that has no misery. Going west upon my pilgrimage by the light of my hat, feeble and tired to the end of my road. Behold me now, and my face to a wall, a playing music unto empty pockets. Much has been made of this little poem, with its gentle, pathetic melancholy, and the wry twist in the last verse. It has given rise to something of the nature of a romantic myth, in which the blind minstrel makes his sad and lonely way through a darkened world. The very type and figure of the poet hidden in the light of thought, singing hymns unbidden, or if not unbidden, at least without hope of reward. Now the trouble about this picture of Raftery is that it runs counter to the whole traditional Gaelic idea of the poet and his function. And so those twelve short lines have been subjected recently to a good deal of cold critical analysis, resulting in the sad but I think sound conclusion that eight of them at any rate are not the work of Raftery, but of someone whose feeling for the English romantics was stronger than his understanding of the craft of Gaelic verse. Four lines only are current in oral tradition. The versions vary, but they usually run something like this. The pathos and the melancholy are gone, and we're left with the wry twist. Now even this much is generally ascribed not to Raftery himself, but to a sharp-tongued rival. Oral tradition is the main source of our knowledge of Raftery, although a great deal of his verse was written down and has been preserved in manuscript. But 120 years is a long time, even among people of long memories, and the language of Raftery is no longer the common vernacular of the East Galway countryside in which he spent the greater part of his life. We are then indebted to those pioneer collectors who recorded the tradition before the language designed, and especially to Douglas Hyde, who brought out his Edizio Princips of the Poet in 1903. Prior to its publication in book form, Hyde's material appeared as a series in the old weekly Freeman, and was read nowhere more avidly than in the Raftery country as we say itself. It revived old memories and gave a new lease of life to a dying tradition. Lady Gregory also incorporated much traditional material in her essay on Raftery, which appeared in 1903 in the volume Poets and Dreamers. And so Raftery's verse, both in the original and in translation, came to reach an audience wider than any he himself could have hoped for. But, ironically, the poem which more than any captured the imagination of this new audience was not of his making. It is, when you come to think of it, remarkable how wrong the most sympathetic discoverers of Celtic literature have always been about the nature of their discovery. The romantic view has persisted since the time of the Ossian cult. What is usually forgotten is that the Celtic poet was essentially a professional craftsman. His was a social vocation, and society paid him for his work. In Ireland, the design of patronage after the break-up of the old social order did not really produce any fundamental change of attitude in this regard. The poets of the hidden Ireland made their verse not just for their own satisfaction, but for the communities among whom they lived. They continued to chronicle and satirise and eulogise and lament, as their predecessors had done. There was certainly now more room for individual feeling. The satire was more personal, the lament more deeply felt, but the sense of community also deepened in the common poverty of peasant and poet. It is against this background that we must see the life and work of Antony Raftery. He served in no princely household that day as long gone. He belonged to no bardic school, not even to the sort of court which the monster poets of the eighteenth century preserved. But he had his patrons, and he served them well. Men like Darby Toonan of Yarr, is whose house the poets are still remembered. He made it his headquarters here at all times, and he was quite welcome every time he came, according to what I understand from the old people. And they never turned him out yet, any night that he was shot to the lodging. Never turned him out, father, and he had the name of an old fiddle going, and he was no good at it, but he was a topper at the Irish and the poems. A topper. A topper at the Irish and the poems. It is in its own way, I suppose, a fair enough epitaph. A more informed appreciation of Raftery remains, of course, in those parts of East Galway which are still Irish-speaking, along with a vast store of information, some of it apocryphal, about his life and times. But the tradition persists, however, imperfectly, even among the English speakers of the area. So strongly did this Gaelic poet leave the mark of his talent and of his personality on the folk mind. He was born in County Mayo, and it appears that his blindness was due to an attack of smallpox contracted while he was still a boy. This blindness was responsible for his way of life. Unfitted for the more stable occupations, he set off as a travelling musician, and although, as we have heard, he wasn't much good at the fiddle, he had a greater gift. We are told that God offered him his choice of talents, and that he chose poetry, leaving music-making to others, like his friend Thomas O'Dawle of the Piper, whose death he mourned in one of his best-remembered songs. It is Thomas O'Dawle who left aching in young hearts and old, and since death has waylaid him, may the graces of God be his fold. This country is ailing, bewailing that fingers of gold, which made music like angels, should be laid in the clay and the cold. This country is ailing, bewailing that fingers of gold, which made music like angels, should be laid in the clay and the cold. This country is ailing, bewailing that fingers of gold, which made music like angels, should be laid in the clay and the cold. This country is ailing, bewailing that fingers of gold, which made music like angels, should be laid in the clay and the cold. Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, Oh dear old Piper O'Neill, That recording of the poet's song for Brighdeen Lacey was made a few miles from Tuam in the historic Clucknell country where the songs of Raftery were first taken down in all their perfection of melody a generation or two ago. But away to the southwest of the county near the border of Clare I heard a faint echo of the praise of Brighdeen in Douglas Hyde's translation which has been absorbed into the folk tradition. And I'm soulless, shortless, and grieving And I'm soulless, shortless, and grieving And foodless to my bleeding And foodless to my bleeding And surely I'll not leave you And I'll die fast for you Up on Lough Erran's Island No food, no drink beside me I'm still hoping I may find you, my child, in Tuam I'm still hoping I may find you, my child, in Tuam Oh, cheeks of blue shall bounding Oh, belly of the mountain You'll promise dearly sounding Forever in my ear And spite of clerics frowning I'll take you as I found you As I would go about Engeloping with my ear Many of the stories told about Raftery are trivial enough in all conscience but they usually have a point Raftery Port He was travelling through the east of Galway And he went into a house a country house and he got a drink of water instead of a drink of milk He went on for two miles further He went into a brine He got a drink of new milk He said He said, look, a milk can work a trick of his brains He said, but they won't have a drink more usually And Pat Cooney, who told me that story assured me solemnly that the poet's wish for Derry Brine came true Hornishly mushy Perhaps the fact that Pass hails from that part of the country himself had something to do with it But it's worth noting that a poet's blessing was regardless something worth having It's also worth noting that the blessing was not given gratuitously Pat Cooney had another story which points in the same direction Raftery Port was travelling He went into a public house And he got a drink and he said, oh The publican was talking to him He says, that man has no handy gab He says, no more than any other man You give him that and says another man to take handy gab out of him So he picked a drink and he gave it to him Raftery wrote the drink And he says Through the hair, you see blows the thronging Outside your shirt you wear your bonnie In your right hand you carry your corny And here is your help, Mr. Hannin Therefore Hannin was the man's name that took the public host There again we have the idea of the poet's right to patronage Even if he were only regarded as a clever ramster a man with an unusual gift of handy gab it wasn't to be expected that he'd perform for another Did you notice, by the way the repeated use of the description Raftery Port Poetry was a recognised trade and was a natural freemasonry between practitioners of the craft There was a port from the north and he did what any man that he'd point out Raftery Port without any person ever introducing him to him He came to the fair of Tubber and there was tints at him in the fair of Tubber there was no public house in it there was tints in it and he'd look up at the show board at the chair of the name and he'd say Isn't this a fine plant grown outside your door? When he came to the tints that Raftery was in Raftery answered inside It is that the token for every man to come in to quench his thirst I have a shilling to see I've been a drinker It would, however, be wrong to imagine that the poets were one big happy family Raftery was, it appears, by no means tolerant of competition The name of Seán of Bourke has come down to us as the victim of one of our poets' most merciless essays in satire his only crime being that he made a verse poking fun at the master But Raftery's greatest rivals were his two brothers, Patsy and Marcus O'Connell who lived near Crockwell and who were both farmers and poets Like all settled men they resented the intruder from Mayo who came charging the country and scolding the people and taking his rent from each village and unless he gets shelter on the full of his belly says he'll put an edge on his scissors There's no doubt whatever but that Raftery had a sharp edge on his son and that he exacted his rent as harshly as any landlord His bardic contention with the Callinans was a bitter business and the verses made on both sides make controversy as we know it now seem the gentle insipid thing But Patsy Callinan's descriptions of Raftery are of considerable interest for allowing for exaggeration and the desire to hurt they do give us some idea of his appearance There were two legs on him like a baker's stick and they as thin as a packing needle a hollow in the middle like a bottle and he carrying the bag that left the hump on him His face was thin, sallow, worn and blacker was his hair than the call of Clay Kenny His eyes moving like two pails of water swimming down by the side of his cheeks And again Evil was his quality on coming to the country He had a carbine of a hat upon him of the colour of snuff on which there was a cord of toe tautened and twisted and a long time that hat had spent thrown on the dumbheel He had a greasy wrapper on him and it were right to explain it for it's many the dab he used to put on its side pocket He had a dirty trouser on him down to the ground in which there were two hundred holes and every other patch A few weeks ago at Rockfield near Athenry I thought to catch an echo of the sound and fury of the controversy when I called on the grandson of one of the protagonists to morph the carbine But nothing could be denser than his account of the battle as we sat there in his kitchen while his two budgies sang away merrily in their cage Of course, they should be good friends you see occasionally but now we think they're far out of it But anyway, it happened that Rhapsody made a song about Cadmium and there's a big commentary that the officers were chattering to him for ages, for every guard about six or seven hundred acres and he said that he was a he called him a rogue you see, a buzzy out of the tunnels you understand now and the grandfather when he heard that that song made you see he accused him of it Cadmium he said you don't understand it that southern rhyme doesn't agree you see to make the rhymes to put some rhymes in to breathe and he went and the grandfather made another one about him and that's at a party and Rhapsody was at the party at the flame you see and the grandfather was after the price of the fiend he didn't care about the owner but he had to do it anyway he did and Rhapsody came along and when he heard the song sung he came back and he was trying to get the grandfather to give him some sort of a back answer or another but he didn't find him somewhere but anyway, he said me warden was very very well thought with him he said I never got to see him with those thoughts until tonight he didn't plan the rivalry had at least one happy outcome Far Callan made a song in praise of a local beauty called Moy's Room and it became so popular that Raftery was forced to do better one Saturday morning I was told he was in a public house in Galway now there a Raftery said one of the customers Callan has got the better of you at last Raftery said nothing but everyone could tell he was raging then the girl who was serving the drink asked him what he'd have she was a plain looking girl but Raftery looked at her for a minute as if she was Helen of Troy I have him now, Susie I've Callan beaten and he had for any poet could make a song for a beauty but only Raftery could make a plain looking girl beautiful with a song there's a lovely poet he lives by the roadway there there was nowhere beside my jive nor Helen who boasted of conquest's Trojan for whom was roast of the town of Troy her cheeks like roses through lilies growing her mouth malodious with songs of glee such mean emotion were never noticed since Tydall Posey was in Ballydee I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I have him now, Susie I made a little journey to Ballylee, the scene of the poet's meeting with Mary, and there I met a namesake and kinsman of her own, Tommy Hines. He and Michael Mulcair of Kiltartan brought me past the old tower which bears witness to another poet's work. I, the poet William Yates, with old millboards and sea-green slates and smithy-work from the Gort Forge, restored this tower for my wife, George. They brought me to the place where Raftery is said to have lived for a while. I have been told, you see, that we're standing in the spot almost where he lived one time. Was, that he had a house here? That he had a house here, right behind you. Well, did he have his wife and his family here, or did he just come here in that time? Well, er, he was a visitor here. Aye. Well, now, it was a place full of poetry, wasn't it? Oh, doubt it. Could you ask anything more poetic than the romantic settlement of Ballylee, where W.B. Yates lived for a good part of his life, came here in the summertime? But, of course, Raftery was here long before W.B. Yates. Well, yes, but, er, then that makes it all the better, because there have been two poets here in Ballylee, is that right? There were two poets, Mr. Raftery, Aunt Ella, and either poet William Yates. From there we went to see the ruined remains of the house of Mary Hines. And this is the borey now, where, down to where Mary Hines lived one time. And along this borey, Raftery used to come to take her on to Cole, and they'd be invited there. They'd be both invited there, Raftery, of course, to play, and she to go with him. I asked Tommy what she looked like, and he gave me the same reply as I got everywhere, that she was the loveliest creature God ever made. He quoted the lines. And then he went back to the beginning of the story. The skies were rainy, the wind was high. Beside Kilpaton I met a maiden, whose eyes were laid me in sudden wine. I gave her greeting, polite and stately. She answered graciously, if any queen, or Raftery, said she, could faithfully kinder now sit beside me to Ballylee. And then he went back to the beginning of the story. The skies were rainy, the wind was high. Beside Kilpaton I met a maiden, whose eyes were laid me in sudden wine. I gave her greeting, polite and stately. She answered graciously, if any queen, or Raftery, said she, could faithfully kinder now sit beside me to Ballylee. And then he went back to the beginning of the story. The skies were rainy, the wind was high. Beside Kilpaton I met a maiden, whose eyes were laid me in sudden wine. I gave her greeting, polite and stately. She answered graciously, if any queen, or Raftery, said she, could faithfully kinder now sit beside me to Ballylee. And then he went back to the beginning of the story. The skies were rainy, the wind was high. Beside Kilpaton I met a maiden, whose eyes were laid me in sudden wine. I gave her greeting, polite and stately. She answered graciously, if any queen, or Raftery, said she, could faithfully kinder now sit beside me to Ballylee. And then he went back to the beginning of the story. The skies were rainy, the wind was high. Beside Kilpaton I met a maiden, whose eyes were laid me in sudden wine. Back in his house in Kilpaton, Michael Mulcair talked of the time when Lady Gregory came to her father to record his speech and tradition. I asked him what his father and many of his generation thought of Raftery. Well they all had talked of Raftery as a man of genius, you know. He was, as I said, a real poet. He went down as a pillar of Irish literature, of Irish poetry. He came, you see, he has transcended as a pillar of Irish literature. Of course the man was, as I said, was a poor man. He had poor surroundings, he had poor way for living and all that. But that doesn't distract any one iota from him as a poet. In all probability, when Raftery lived, he was, as I might say, the sort of genius or the god of the locality. Did the people regard Raftery as one of themselves? Well I wouldn't say that they'd altogether regard him as one of themselves. And yet they wouldn't regard him as a strange outsider. Raftery was a man who very probably, with a greater majority of the people, had a certain warmth. Whom they loved as a poet and whom they loved as a musician, as I say. But I wouldn't think that they regarded him as one of themselves around here. Because he would be on a different status, anyway, to them. He was looked up to, I'm sure. I imagine he would be very much looked up to. Or at least amongst the people who liked Raftery and whom Raftery liked. Of course to the people whom Raftery didn't like, he was, as I might put the term, a despised god in that respect. Raftery was certainly his people's poet in time of misfortune. The tragic drowning on Loch Cobb, when eleven young men and eight girls from Anna Down lost their lives, evoked from them as passionate a lament as any in our literature. If I live to tell it, they'll be remembered, though dead and buried in Anna Down. I will never forget the time when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young. I will never forget the time when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young. I will never forget the time when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young, when I was young. If Raftery spoke for his people in his lament for the tragedy of Anna Down, he spoke for them too, clearly and unambiguously, in matters of even greater consequence. If I got your hand, that is, I would take it, but not to shake it, O Dennis Brown, but to hang you high with a hempen cable, and your feet unable to find the ground. For it's Manny the boy who was strong and able, you sent in chains with your plier and frown, but they'll come again with the French flag waving, and the French drums raving to strike you down. These fierce and bitter lines on the sadistic high sheriff of Mayo have been attributed to Raftery, and they are certainly in the spirit of the songs he made for the resurgent Ireland which was born in 1798, in its long struggle for religious and civil freedom. For let there be no mistake about it, the inspiration that came from France and the leadership of the Anglo-Irish would never have sufficed to bring the nation to freedom had not the common people of Gaelic Ireland had their own leaders and their own inspiration. O'Connell professed to despise the Gaelic tradition, but when Raftery hailed emancipation, it was from the heart of that tradition he spoke. The Greek and the Turk are hard at work, and shall we buy shirk and the commonweal, and the French shall smite at the English might, and Ireland light with a blaze of steel. Dear God, who suffered for us on Friday, may I never die till I see them real, the orange men and an Irish pen, we shall make them then come into heel. In the struggle against the payment of tithes, Raftery's sharp, strong songs sounded a clear note of leadership. There is nothing parochial or provincial in his political outlook. Here, at least, he deserves to be called a national poet. Still, it was natural that the local tyranny, the injustice immediately experienced, awoke a special reaction in him. His lament for Antony Daly, a Galway white boy who was hanged on Good Friday in the year 1820, is still sung, and his curse on those who betrayed their friend is remembered. On the eve of Good Friday, the grail was lying, snipped by the gall. On the same day, Christ dying, rose, buying the human race from its fall. God grant requital, in our crying there was no use at all. Cullen and his wife there, took the life there of Daly, black therefore. On the eve of Good Friday, we shall make them come into heel. He shall be hanged on Good Friday in the year 1820, on the eve of Good Friday, the grail was lying, snipped by the gall. God grant requital, in our crying there was no use at all. On the eve of Good Friday, we shall make them come into heel. He was ancient in myth and modern history, combined to form a coherent, if not entirely accurate story of the Irish nation. The great wonder is, where this blind illiterate man acquired his last store of fact and fiction. He learned a lot, no doubt, from the poor scholars of the time, but he must have had an extraordinarily retentive memory. He was obviously familiar with a considerable body of the Gaelic poetry of the preceding two centuries, and we can only presume that this was the source also of his technical skill in the making of verse. But then, as one old man said to me, I asked him, what made Raftery's poems better than others? And he answered, I asked another man, did he ever hear any account of how Raftery actually made his poems? It was worn out for you, and you would write it down. He was gifted. He seen the light of day once. He asked a gift of God, he asked a request of God, or a gift of God, might of God, to get one sight of the world, and he opened his two eyes, and he got one sight of the world. He begged of God not to give him such a way of sight. He was blind as a stone back then. He didn't want to see the world. This same man, incidentally, would have none of the common opinion that Raftery was not a good fiddler. Far from it. Marching Fury of Mannenhorst agreed that he might not always have been such a good musician, but that something happened which made him one. One night he was drunk, and he was riding to a furry fort. And the next thing was, they asked him to play. And he did play. So, the next thing was, they invited him in. And he went in, and there was a queen there. And there was only one subject, and they asked him to have some wine. And some friend that knew him alive told him not to touch anything that he'd be offered. So, with that, he played away for the time, and he enjoyed the time, and there were the finest dancers and the finest of qualities that could be seen. But anyway, by great chance and by grace, he made his way out. And he was never as good a player of his life as he was after that night. Now, he got that as a gift. If he ate or drank from them, he didn't know what would happen. And so the legends go about the memory of the poet. They say death came to him once as he laid in bed in a house in Galway, but that he asked for time to repent. His request was granted, and he made his poem of repentance as so many of the poets of Ireland did before him. This poem was held in high honour long after his death, and they say that Archbishop McHale held that it would gain him pardon if his sins were as many as the sins of the world. Douglas Hyatt has made a fine translation of the poem, but here are a few verses from a folk translation which I found in a manuscript collection made at the turn of the century. As I am old and my blossom faded and my past years entirely wasted, nine feathers deep I fell in sin, may the Lamb of God his mercy give. When I was young I had bad rules taken, both quaddling and intoxication. I could not go on a Sabbath, drink or gamble and attend my duties of a Sunday morning. To a woman in wedlock I had no disgust to become the object of my brutal lust. To cursing and swearing I was much inclined. May the Lord have mercy, my errors hide. For as I am guilty and my crimes so great, I hope the Lord will not think too late to lay all damage on my body down and the King of Glory to save my soul. The day is gone and I did not heed until the crop was damaged all to the weed. May the King of Justice give me space, my eyes to wet with the flood of grace. King of Glory, most divine, who transformed water into wine and delivered Jonas from the deep and well rewarded the penitent thief. Glorious Queen, Mother and Virgin, it is to you I crave for intercession, that you would for me apply to your sweet Jesus who for us died. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. Was it, I wonder, during those years of respite that death gave to him that he resolved to revisit his home in County Mayo. This song is sung all over the West but I remember especially the joy in the face of a very old man a few miles from the Mayo border as he recalled the lines. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. I am like a desolate bush in a field or like a boat that would loose the steer that would be driven to shore by wave or tide without provision, help or guide. That he was taken from there sometime in the middle of the night and brought over there to cleaning. And there was a certain group that wanted to have him put away for the night. But I think there was too much games going on at that time and the old people that respected him came here and buried him that night. And who gave you that account? I heard the old people ever tell that. So that's the reason he was buried that night. And an old man, he lived down here now that remembers, he remembered that night and he was only a child at the time. He's dead now for the last 20 years anyway. And he said, that's how he remembered the grave, was that they were burying him. The candles, they had some candles lit on the face of the grave, to all of us. And the candles never quenched and they thought it very strange and the night was pretty roof. Their opinion was that there must be something very good in the man, I would put it, that brings him to life. Death enabled the candles to stay lit and make a pretty roof for us. The candles never quenched. Some say too that at the hour of his death Peter Clunan's barn shone with many lights. But Peter Clunan says there was just one candle as he learned one day when he was scutching wheat in the same barn. One night when I saw him, he came up to the house asking me to go down scutching wheat for him and I went down next morning and we brought out a chair and a stone to crack, scutch the wheat. And he says you were just in the car and now it is for after he died. And in fact he says the candlestick is there in the old window. And I went over and put a hand in the candlestick and it melted before me and went and roast. Gone was roast for so many years before that was in it. So after many years the vessel that held the flame has gone to dust. But the flame still burns. You've been listening there to a documentary from 1957 a poet and his people on the great blind poet Antony O'Rafter who lived from around 1780 I think up to 1840. I think he died before the famine. He definitely was alive I think around 1839 because that was the year of the great tragedy in Anglecón when a boat went down coming from and down into Galway and sank there just off Menlo Pier and Newcastle near Menlo Castle with I think up to 20 people unfortunately drowned. That happened around 1839 and O'Rafter wrote a great lament on Anglecón which is still sung today. He wrote beautiful love songs as well and we're going to leave you this week with one of those, Máire Ní Ainn. Máire Ní Ainn was a young lady who worked around the Kiltartan area there near Gort near where Lady Gregory lived in later years in Cool Park after he wrote a famous love song dedicated to her and it's still sung very widely today throughout Connemara. But we're not going to hear a Connemara singer sing that today. We're going to hear a voice that will be familiar to many people older people now I imagine the voice of Donagh O'Gallagher. Donagh O'Gallagher from Ackerley who was a politician in the fall, a politician I believe and Minister for Gaelic for many years back in the 70s and 80s. He was also a beautiful singer and you'll hear his version now of Máire Ní Ainn at the end of our programme today. But thank you all very much for listening. Next week I'm going to bring you some detail on the Irish language events in particular in Céiladh Aileann an Glóchan and in Céiladh Aileann an Glóchan you'll be able to watch either on Saturday or Sunday on Céiladh Aileann an Glóchan. And there's a lot to talk about and a lot of Gaelic to talk about in the meantime. So next week I will bring you all the rundown on those events. But great events happening again this year. The ever-popular Seannáil sa Raibh leach with Johnnie Wharton-Larry O'Gallagher and Catriona Ní Cheannuáin is on Thursday the 19th of September. That's day one of the Irish language festivals and as you said earlier I'm going to leave you with an excerpt from O'Gallagher from Áchaill agus móradh ní aith. Áchaill agus móradh ní aith Éitch me láireach an ghráil le mí Láir me léach an mún tímáile Sé leireach cháileach sé dhí ragair sí Sé a dhúr sí ráistraí Tá mín tím sáistí Gos glúis go láilin go báil i lí Mér a phuair me an taraiscim Nír léidh mead cáirde Rinnan me gáidí Is éitch múch rí Ní ráil a ghalagain a thras na párche Snídh ag múidh láilin ach go tún i tí Leagair ún bárde Róg le níos cáirde Ard ar róg le níos cáirde érs San chúileann pháineach le mais na sí Sé a dhúr sí ráistraí Bí ghóis ceith ffáilse Tá hansal ar láire máil i lí Is éivinn éirach ar héidh eich léide Stw fféachinn sí se ar wál i lí Es iúil snidh iainte bwyschnó eith mér sgáil chelw ar éanam leich ólta sí Ce am brísim éitinn go bhí a l'ergus ar flán ag rif a tán Níl maith ffa hénw na chell ar éine Sís beirne greine gus grá moch rí Iúil me saithne sun ranc le chéile un sbòln yn greigis ar nes i Iúil me saithne sun ranc le chéile un sbòln yn greigis ar nes i Iúil me saithne sun ranc le chéile un sbòln yn greigis ar nes i Ó bhrúach lach greine go bhéalne cefe sníoch me ffeirín ar bhích morí Gha mense póstí le ha blán o áge sí lach an tóraích go lán bení Chwan bhéalne go bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne Chwan bhéalne