The opening tune is
'Come Back Paddy Reilly'
Page 1 of the poem by By Edward Walsh
'Tis night and the moon from her
star-clad height
Sheds her mantle of silver hue o'er
Clonfert's green graves,
And all sparkling bright Daloo in
her gleam
Beams a sheet of light where
murmur its waters blue.
In the gloom from afar o'er the
soothing scene -
The tall cliff and wavy wood.
And mournful and grey are the
rude rocks seen:
So heaves the green turf in
huge mounds between
Where Castle McAuly stood.
Here frowned the dark turrets in
lordly pride;
Here smiled the gay chieftain's
hall.
The clansmen here marshall'd in
order wide;
When war-fires high blazed on
the mountain's side,
For battle at glory's call.
Here ne'er shall the string of the
clairseach wake,
The songs of the hall
are o'er.
No more shall the voice of the
victor break;
When home o'er the mountain
their wild way take -
The kern and crahodore.
The clansmen who battled with
Saxon foes;
the chief of the lordly
dome;
The bard at whose call the stout
clansmen rose;
In death undistinguished all
calm repose.
They are gone to their silent
home.
Lo! Yonder where moss-grown
the gravestones lie,
MacAuliffe sad sought
the tomb.
He died not in battle by victor
high;
Heartbroken he yielded his
latest sigh
For Meelan his daughter's
doom.
Daloo! While there glidest thy
groves between,
Shall the maids of thy sunlit
glade
Twine horror-fraught tales of
the nuptial scene,
With the olden lays echoed
through woodland green,
For Meelan, the gold-haired maid.
And mild as the lambkin that
crops the the lea,
And pensive as cowslips
pale,
She oft sought the valley alone
- for she
Was woo'd by a chieftain of high
degree
In yonder dark lonely dale.
O'Herly was gallant and brave
and gay;
And chronicles ancient tell,
That Malachy bid his fair
daughter say
Who'd kiss her fair cheek on
the nuptial day -
Her choice on O'Herly fell.
Fond pair! You have woven in
fancy's loom,
Sweet garlands of pleasure gay;
Dark destiny withers your
garlands' bloom,
Yet could beauty, could merit,
revoke the doom.
Not yours were this
plaintive lay. (continue)....
This page has been visited
times since 16 February 2000