Volume: CBÉ 0463 (Part 1)

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1. The Poetic Beggar-Man (continued)

   

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   to be in Sligo, when a certain solicitor died, and he asked some of his brother solicitors for "help". They refused him. When the funeral was starting four solicitors carried the coffin part of the way to the cemetary. The tramp wrote the following description of the affair.
   "Theres a knave overhead and four underneath,
   The body is dead and the soul on a journey
   The devil is at law and he wants an attornay.
   When the Protestant church at Riverstown was being built the bishop of Elphin came to consecrate it, he met our hero who as usual was on the look out of money, and he refused him. The tramp wrote the following.
   "An English Bishop came from Elphin
   To consecrate the church at Cooper hill.
   But if the devil himself came up from hell,
   He would do it fully as well.
   He met another clergyman who gave him asixpenny bit It looked a doubtful coin, so he passed the remark to the clergyman. He asked it back again to have a look at it, but the tramp doubted that he meant to keep it, so he struck the 6d down in his pocket, and turned away remarking.
   "A sixpenny bit, from the Holy annointed
   He thought to get it back, but he was disappointed

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Date

   9 December 1937

   Item type

   Lore

   Language

   English

   Writing mode

   Handwritten

   Writing script

   Roman script

   Informant

   • Seamus Ó Gamhnáin