Chapter II

Irish history having been forbidden in schools, has been, to a great extent, learned from Raftery's poems by the people of Mayo, where he was born, and of Galway, where he spent his later years. It is hard to say where history ends in them and religion and politics begin; for history, religion, and politics grow on one stem in Ireland, an eternal trefoil. 'He was a great historian,' it is said; 'for every book he'd get hold of, he'd get it read out to him.' And a neighbour tells me: 'He used to stop with my uncle that was a hedge schoolmaster in those times in Ballylee, and that was very fond of drink; and when he was drunk, he'd take his clothes off, and run naked through the country. But at evening he'd open the school; and the neighbours that would be working all day would gather in to him, and he'd teach them through the night; and there Raftery would be in the middle of them.' His chief historical poem is the 'Talk with the Bush,' of over three hundred lines. Many of the people can repeat it, or a part of it, and some possess it in manuscript. The bush, a forerunner of the 'Talking Oak' or the 'Father of the Forest,' gives its recollections, which go back to the times of the Firbolgs, the Tuatha De Danaan, 'without heart, without humanity'; the Sons of the Gael; the heroic Fianna, who 'would never put more than one man to fight against one'; Cuchulain 'of the Grey Sword, that broke every gap'; till at last it comes to 'O'Rourke's wife that brought a blow to Ireland': for it was on her account the English were first called in. Then come the crimes of the English, made redder by the crime of Martin Luther. Henry VIII 'turned his back on God and denied his first wife.' Elizabeth 'routed the bishops and the Irish Church. James and Charles laid sharp scourges on Ireland.... Then Cromwell and his hosts swept through Ireland, cutting before him all he could. He gave estates and lands to Cromwellians, and he put those that had a right to them on mountains.' Whenever he brings history into his poems, the same strings are touched. 'At the great judgment, Cromwell will be hiding, and O'Neill in the corner. And I think if William can manage it at all, he won't stand his ground against Sarsfield.' And a moral often comes at the end, such as: 'Don't be without courage, but join together; God is stronger than the Cromwellians, and the cards may turn yet.'

For Raftery had lived through the '98 Rebellion, and the struggle for Catholic Emancipation; and he saw the Tithe War, and the Repeal movement; and it is natural that his poems, like those of the poets before him, should reflect the desire of his people for 'the mayntenance of their own lewde libertye,' that had troubled Spenser in his time.

Here are some verses from his '_Cuis da ple_,' 'cause to plead,' composed at the time of the Tithe War:--

'The two provinces of Munster are afoot, and will not stop till
tithes are overthrown, and rents accordingly; and if help were
given them, and we to stand by Ireland, the English guard would be
feeble, and every gap made easy. The Gall (English) will be on
their back without ever returning again; and the Orangemen bruised
in the borders of every town, a judge and jury in the courthouse
for the Catholics, England dead, and the crown upon the Gael....

'There is many a fine man at this time sentenced, from Cork to
Ennis and the town of Roscrea, and fair-haired boys wandering and
departing from the streets of Kilkenny to Bantry Bay. But the cards
will turn, and we'll have a good hand: the trump shall stand on the
board we play at.... Let ye have courage. It is a fine story I
have. Ye shall gain the day in every quarter from the Sassanach.
Strike ye the board, and the cards will be coming to you. Drink out
of hand now a health to Raftery: it is he would put success for you
on the _Cuis da ple_.'

This is part of another song:--

'I have a hope in Christ that a gap will be opened again for us....
The day is not far off, the Gall will be stretched without anyone
to cry after them; but with us there will be a bonfire lighted up
on high.... The music of the world entirely, and Orpheus playing
along with it. I'd sooner than all that, the Sassanach to be cut
down.'

But with all this, he had plenty of common sense, and an old man at Ballylee tells me:--'One time there were a sort of nightwalkers--Moonlighters as we'd call them now, Ribbonmen they were then--making some plan against the Government; and they asked Raftery to come to their meeting. And he went; but what he said was this, in a verse, that they should look at the English Government, and think of all the soldiers it had, and all the police--no, there were no police in those days, but gaugers and such like--and they should think how full up England was of guns and arms, so that it could put down Buonaparty; and that it had conquered Spain, and took Gibraltar from it; and the same in America, fighting for twenty-one years. And he asked them what they had to fight with against all those guns and arms?--nothing but a stump of a stick that they might cut down below in the wood. So he bid them give up their nightwalking, and come out and agitate in the daylight.'

I have been told--but I do not know if it is true--that he was once sent to Galway Gaol for three months for a song he made against the Protestant Church, 'saying it was like a wall slipping, where it wasn't built solid.'