School: Ballyhahill (C.) (roll number 10686)

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1. The Eye-Opener

   

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   Price TWOPENCE
   The EYE-OPENER
   (By J. M. O'Sullivan, The Earl of Clounlehard.) (Ballyhahill Co. Limerick)
   (All Rights Reserved.)
   Come all ye Irish ratepayers, I mean to let you hear;
   Prepare for an Election, for I'm told it is quie near;
   Now be alert and leave the hearth, take off your overcoat
   Don't listen to those fairy tales, but for Freedom cast your vote.

   Those men you have elected they are very good at speech,
   But when they go to Parliament they don't practice what they preach;
   They brush back their hair, I do declare, and sit cosy on their stools,
   Saying: "We can ease our troubles now, for we have doped the fools."

   There's on thing that they spout about - that is the Farmers' Loan;
   But you must remember that this is not their own;
   You have to pay big interest-the principal behind,
   They say it go to capital to feed the orphan child.

   They gave eigh hundred to a man-I heard a T.D. say-
   That never saw a Black and Tan, or was in trouble's way.
   He was off in a foreign land, I mean to let you hear
   Those are the men who get eight hundred and seventy five a year.

   There is another body called the Limerick Board of Health,
   And since they went to office their presence it is felt;
   They have not improved the labourer, or rose his pay one cent.,
   But a box of snuff at Christmas to snuff his extra rent.

   There are lots of gentry with watches on their sleeves,
   Riding Raleigh bikes and then going for the reliev;
   If you met them on a Sundry they would knock you going to Mass,
   While the poor starving labourer must go and eat the grass.

   May God be with those Ministers-may the heavens be their bed,
   They may have good times in Ireland yet when the farmers are all bled;
   They will own all those splendid farms, those manions and grand gates.
   Its then they'll preach economy when themselves must pay the rates.

   

   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. genre
      1. poetry
         1. folk poetry (~9,504)

   Language

   English

   Informant

   J. M. O' Sullivan

   Other names

   J. M. O' Sullivan

   The Bard of Clounlehard (local name)

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Cloonlahard East, Co. Limerick