School: Skryne (roll number 1210)
- Location:
- Skreen, Co. Meath
- Teacher: Brian Mac Gabhann
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0686, Page 318
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Local Poets.
In the district of Carrickleck - about three miles from Kingscourt there lived a local poet some sixty years ago named Pat Corbett. From all reports this man had genius in him, and the other members of his family attained a fair degree of education, a sister Mary being a teacher in England. He excelled in the use of satire and his pen was dreaded in the district. One man bought a cow too cheaply from a widowed woman, probably his mother, and he satirized him in a lengthy poem fragments of which still survive. He adopted a shrewd method in building up the rhyme, narrating in each verse the shady dads of some infamous character or other in the district, but winding up the verse by saying that bad as he was "he never stole a cow from a widow" like so and so named. An other occasion he was working with my mother’s people in the bog with a number of other men. Amongst them was the son of a widow who was called "Jane's son" to differentiate from a family of the same name. This Jane's son was younger than the old poet and was apparently smart on the tongue for he kept poking fun at the old man to the amusement of his fellow workers. This finally worked the following(continues on next page)
