As I Rode by Granard Moat (3 page)

In the County Tyrone, near the town of Dungannon,

Where many’s the ruction myself had a han’ in,

Bob Williamson lived, a weaver by trade,

And we all of us thought him a stout Orange blade.

On the Twelfth of July, as it yearly did come,

Bob played on the flute to the sound of the drum:

You may talk of your harp, the piano or lute,

But there’s none could compare with the ould Orange flute.

But this sinful deceiver he took us all in

And married a Papish called Brigid McGinn,

Turned Papish himself and forsook the ould cause

That gave us our freedom, religion and laws.

Now the boys of the place made some comment upon it,

And Bob had to fly to the province of Connacht:

He flew with his wife and his fixtures to boot,

And along with the rest went the ould Orange flute.

At the chapel on Sundays to atone for his past deeds

He said Paters and Aves on his knees and his brown beads,

And after a while at the priest’s own desire

He took the ould flute for to play in the choir.

He took the ould flute for to play at the Mass,

But the instrument shivered and sighed ‘Oh Alas!’

And blow as he would, though he made a great noise,

The flute would play only the Protestant Boys.

Bob flustered and fingered and got in a splutter

And dipped the ould flute in the blessed holy water.

He thought that the dipping would bring a new sound,

When he blew it again it played Croppies Lie Down.

He could whistle his utmost and finger and blow

To play Papish tunes, but the flute wouldn’t go.

Kick the Pope, the Boyne Water and Croppies Lie Down,

And no Papish squeak in it all could be found.

At the Council of priests that was held the next day

‘Twas decided to banish the ould flute away.

Since they couldn’t knock heresy out of its head,

They bought Bob a new one to play in its stead.

So the ould flute was doomed and its fate was pathetic,

‘Twas sentenced and burned at the stake as heretic.

As the flames roared around it they heard a strange noise,

The ould flute was still playing the Protestant Boys.

God bless the Hills of Donegal,

I’ve heard their praises sung,

In days long gone beyond recall

When I was very young.

Then I would pray to see a day

Before Life’s course be run

When I could sing the praises

Of the Hills above Drumquin.

I love the Hills of Dooish,

Be they heather clad or lea,

The wooded glens of Cooel

And the Fort on Dun-na-ree.

The green clad slopes of Kirlish

When they meet the setting sun

Descending in its glory on the

Hills above Drumquin.

Drumquin, you’re not a city

But you’re all the world to me.

Your lot I will not pity

Should you never greater be.

For I love you as I knew you

When from school I used to run

On my homeward journey through you

To the Hills above Drumquin.

I have seen the Scottish Highlands,

They have beauties wild and grand,

I have journeyed in the Lowlands

’Tis a cold and cheerless land.

But I always toiled content

For when each hard day’s work was done

My heart went back at sunset

To the Hills above Drumquin.

When the whins across Drumbarley

Make the fields a yellow blaze;

When the heather turns to purple

On my native Dressog braes;

When the sandstone rocks of Claramore

Are glistening in the sun,

Then Nature’s at her grandest

On the hills above Drumquin.

This world is sad and dreary,

And the tasks of life are sore.

My feet are growing weary

I may never wander more.

For I want to rest in Langfield

When the sands of life are run

In the sheltering shade of Dooish

And the Hills above Drumquin.

You farmers and traders of Ireland

I pray will you listen with ease,

For they say it’s as true as the Gospel.

So listen, kind friends, if you please.

Till I tell you about a new creamery

That only was opened last June,

For the good of the parish of Langfield,

While some of them left it full soon.

For the good of the parish of Langfield,

For no other cause was it built,

To help the poor struggling farmers

With which Langfield it once had been filled.

CHORUS

So here’s to our own local creamery,

And to the wide world be it known,

Drumquin it has got the best creamery,

The best in the County Tyrone.

We have got an excellent committee

That meets upon each Monday night.

Two or three of our members

Most generally end in a fight.

For the one won’t give in to the other,

And, maybe, we haven’t some fun

Away down by the parish of Langfield

In our creamery down at Drumquin.

We have got an excellent committee,

Religion it makes, there’s no doubt.

For we have got JPs and clergy,

And some of them Orangemen stout.

We have two or three ’Ninety-Eight men,

Beneath the same banner they stand,

To represent that same banner

The banner of God Save the Land.

We have got an excellent committee

That lies in close to the town,

Charlie Hall, Tommy Law and Joe Dolan,

Pat Morris and Charlie McKeown.

John Corry that sweeps the Cornmarket,

Jamey Corry from Bomacatall,

Pat the Tip from behind Dooish Mountain,

John Futhy from no place at all.

We have got an excellent reporter,

You all know him well, Quentin Todd,

He reports all affairs to the papers.

That’s something that seems very odd.

For Quentin himself, he’s no writer,

But not one single word could you speak,

But he’d lift and take straight down to Omagh,

To the
Tyrone Constitution
next week.

So, you farmers and traders of Ireland,

I hope you’ll take care and be wise.

Try and keep up your creamery

Till you see how your parish will rise.

It’ll be one of the finest in Ulster,

It’ll be one of the best ever seen.

It’ll be one of the finest in Ireland,

Our creamery down at Drumquin.

Into our townlan’, on a night of snow,

Rode a man from God-knows-where;

None of us bade him stay or go,

Nor deemed him friend, nor damned him foe.

But we stabled his big roan mare;

For in our townlan’ we’re a decent folk,

And if he didn’t speak, why none of us spoke,

And we sat till the fire burned low.

We’re a civil sort in our wee place,

So we made the circle wide

Round Andy Lemon’s cheerful blaze,

And wished the man his length of days

And a good end to his ride.

He smiled in under his slouchy hat –

Says he: ‘There’s a bit of a joke in that,

For we both ride different ways.’

The whiles we smoked we watched him stare

From his seat fornenst the glow.

I nudged Joe Moore: ‘You wouldn’t dare

To ask him, who he’s for meeting there,

And how far he has got to go.’

And Joe wouldn’t dare, nor Wully Scott,

And he took no drink – neither cold nor hot –

This man from God-knows-where.

It was closin’ time, an’ late forbye,

When us ones braved the air –

I never saw worse (may I live or die)

Than the sleet that night, an’ I says, says I:

‘You’ll find he’s for stopping there.’

But at screek o’ day, through the gable pane,

I watched him spur in the peltin’ rain,

And I juked from his rovin’ eye.

Two winters more, then the Trouble Year,

When the best that man can feel

Was the pike he kapt in hidin’ near,

Till the blood o’ hate and the blood o’ fear

Would be redder nor rust on the steel.

Us ones quet from mindin’ the farms,

Let them take what we gave wi’ the weight o’ our arms,

From Saintfield to Kilkeel.

In the time o’ the Hurry, we had no lead –

We all of us fought with the rest –

And if e’er a one shook like a tremblin’ reed,

None of us gave neither hint nor heed.

Nor ever even’d we’d guessed.

We men of the North had a word to say,

An’ we said it then, in our own dour way,

An’ we spoke as we thought was best.

All Ulster over, the weemen cried

For the stan’in’ crops on the lan’ –

Many’s the sweetheart an’ many’s the bride

Would liefer ha’ gone till where He died,

And ha’ mourned her lone by her man.

But us ones weathered the thick of it,

And we used to dander along and sit,

In Andy’s, side by side.

What with discourse goin’ to and fro,

The night would be wearin’ thin,

Yet never so late when we rose to go

But someone would say: ‘Do ye min’ thon snow,

An’ the man who came wanderin’ in?’

And we be to fall to the talk again,

If by any chance he was One o’ Them –

The man who went like the Win’.

Well ’twas gettin’ on past the heat o’ the year

When I rode to Newtown Fair;

I sold as I could (the dealers were near –

Only three pounds eight for the Innish steer,

An’ nothin’ at all for the mare!)

I met M’Kee in the throng o’ the street,

Says he: ‘The grass has grown under our feet

Since they hanged young Warwick here.’

And he told me that Boney had promised help

To a man in Dublin town.

Says he: ‘If you’ve laid the pike on the shelf,

Ye’d better go home hot-fut by yourself,

An’ once more take it down.’

So by Comber road I trotted the grey

And never cut corn until Killyleagh

Stood plain on the risin’ groun’.

For a wheen o’ days we sat waitin’ the word

To rise and go at it like men.

But no French ships sailed into Cloughey Bay,

And we heard the black news on a harvest day

That the cause was lost again;

And Joey and me, and Wully Boy Scott,

We agreed to ourselves we’d as lief as not

Ha’ been found in the thick o’ the slain.

By Downpatrick Gaol I was bound to fare

On a day I’ll remember, feth,

For when I came to the prison square

The people were waitin’ in hundreds there,

An’ you wouldn’t hear stir nor breath!

For the sodgers were standing, grim an’ tall,

Round a scaffold built there fornenst the wall,

An’ a man stepped out for death!

I was brave an’ near to the edge of the throng,

Yet I knowed the face again.

An’ I knowed the set, an’ I knowed the walk

An’ the sound of his strange up-country talk,

For he spoke out right an’ plain.

Then he bowed his head to the swinging rope,

Whiles I said, Please God’ to his dying hope,

And ‘Amen’ to his dying prayer,

That the Wrong would cease and the Right prevail

For the man that they hanged at Downpatrick gaol

Was the Man from GOD-KNOWS-WHERE!