They were Lilly Whites from Kildare,
And Boggers from County Clare,
Herring Gutters from Donegal
And Dubliner Jackeens.
They were Goat Suckers, Slaneysiders,
Magpies and Rossies.
They were Kellys, and Murrays,
O’Carrols, and Moores,
They were Campbells, MacMurphys, and Dunns.
One claimed he’s from the Hill of Tara,
Another, from Tyrone among the brush.
They came for the work on the Schuylkill Canal.
They came for the work on the railway.
They came for the love of those lonesome Colleens
They left at the dockside in Derry.
They worked and they drank,
And they gambled and swore,
And they prayed for the saints’ intercession.
A few sought the balm of a comforting whore,
Then mumbled their sins at confession.
They offered their immigrant muscle and sweat,
Like Hercules hard at his labors,
And carved out the tunnels and fashioned the locks
That helped build their grandchildren’s nation.
Categories:
murrays, america, history, ireland,
Form: Lyric
Big ol Billy
Near old Dirran, on the river, an old time pub had its day. ..
Billy Richards was the owner, had a rupture so they say. ..
There he sold the watered whisky and the rum to all who'd pay...
Earned a quid and made a nest egg till the Murrays' came his way. ..
Sitting on his front verandah chanting
calling laughing low, .."Big ol Billy, Big ol Billy," soon the rum began to flow. ..
So enlarged was Billy's rupture, so apparent his dismay, ..
every time the chanting started, fiery rum, he'd have to pay...
In the early nineteen hundreds medicine was touch and go, ...
poisons nasty, drugs so deadly, all were used by the medico...
Not the knife for Big ol Billy, fifty fifty die that way. ..
Better get another keg, stop the Murray's chanting, hey? ...
The Murray's were Aboriginal people living on the Murray river.near the south west
Queensland town of Dirranbandi.
Sponsor Brian Strand
Contest Name 1-14 any theme /form max 14 LINES
Categories:
murrays, adventureold, old, time, drug,
Form: Rhyme