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Shaun O’Dwyer A Glanna

Shaun O’Dwyer A Glanna.

Old Jacobite Ballad, by a Cappoquin Girl.

I.

All night in lonely sorrow,

I waited for the morrow-

Upon the heathy mountain top,

I lingered for the dawn,

To see beneath me spreading,

Pield and-farm-steading,

Hill and dale and valley,

Meadow, moor, and bawn;

And westward where I sought her,

There rolled the deep Blackwater,

With the gentle Bride and Finisk,

That to swell her bosom came;

Of all a farewell taking

With a sad sore heart and breaking-

Oh! Shaun O'Dwyer, a chorra,

We're worsted in the game.

II.

Oh ! Shaun O'Dwyer a Glanna,

What head but yours could plan a

Blood-red midnight foray

On the churlish Saxoii knaves-

Could lead through glens and passes

Your spears of Gallowglasses,

And launch them like the lightning

Over crimson English graves-

Could plant the yawning cannon

'Gainst wall with gun and man on,

Or lead the deadly sally,

Though the breach it gaped with flame.

You would sweep your foes before you

When the battle's blaze lit o'er you.

Oh ! Shaun O'Dwyer, a chorra,

We're worsted in the game.

III.

In truth you left a sparse field,

When side by side with Sarsfield,

We charged the Dutch at Limerick,

And swept them from the wall-

When we led the men of Decie,

With Calahan and Tracey,

And Colonel Teague O'Mahony,

The boldest of them all

With the green flag flying o'er us,

Christ! how they cowed before us,

In one short breath- a burst of death-

We wrapped them in its flame.

At our very sight they shivered

In a trance of rear'they quivered,

Yet, Shaun O'Dwyer, a chorra,

We're worsted in the game.

IV.

After Aughrim's great disaster,

When our foe, in sooth, was master,

It was you that first plunged in and swam

The Shannon's boiling flood ;

And through Slieve Bloom's dark passes

You led our Gallowglasses,

Altho' the hungry Saxon wolves

Were howling for our blood.

And as we crossed Tipperary,

We rieved the clan O'Leary,

And drove a creacht before us,

As our horsemen southward came.

With our swords and spears we gored them,

As through flood and fight we bore them,

Still, Shaun O'Dwyer, a chorra,

We're worsted in the game.

V.

Long, long we kept the hill-side,

Our couch hard by the rill-side ;

The sturdy knotted oaken boughs,

Our curtains overhead.

The summer's blaze we laughed at,

The winter's snow wo scoffed at,

And trusted to our long steel swords

To win us daily bread;

Till the Dutchman's troops came round us

In fire and steel they bound us;

They blazed the woods and mountains

Till the very clouds were flame;

Yet our sharpened swords cut through them,

In their very heart we hewed them-

Oh ! Shaun O'Dwyer, a chorra,

We're worsted in the game.

VI.

Here's health to your and my king,

The sovereign of our liking,'

And to Sarsfield, underneath whose flag

We cast once more a chance;

For the morning's dawn will wing us

Across the sea, and bring us

To take our stand, and wield a brand

Among the sons of France.

And though we part in sorrow,

Still, Shaun O'Dwyer, a chorra,

Our prayer is “God Save Ireland!

And pour blessings on her name.”

May her sons be true when needed-

May they never feel as we did,

For, Shaun O'Dwyer a Glanna,

We're worsted in the game.

By John Walsh, of Cappoquin, Waterford

First printed in the Christmas number of the ‘Waterford Citizen’, 1869, over the signature ‘A Cappoquin Girl’.

Ref: ‘Shaun O'Dwyer a Glanna’. All Ireland Review, Vol. 1, No. 25 (Jun. 23, 1900), p. 4

Last update: 18 March 2010