Lili Marlene

Lili Marlene

Rónán-Gearóid Ó Domhnaill

Underneath the lantern by the barrack gate,Darling I remember the way you used to wait, 'Twas there that you whispered tenderly, That you loved me, You'd always be,My Lili of the lamplight, My own Lili Marlene

Lili Marlene undoubtedly ranks as the most famous song of The Second World War. It became the unofficial song of both the Germans and Allies and had many different versions, some designed to promote longing and love, others hatred towards the foe while others were anti-war.

The song was originally written by Hans Leip (1893-1983) in 1915, who was a young soldier about to go to war. What he experienced at the front horrified him and he often reminisced of happier times when he stood on guard duty and caught a glimpse of his girlfriend and wondered if he would survive the death and destruction that surrounded him. Amidst the horrors of war he longed to be with her once more, a longing his generation and the next one could readily identify with. The name Lili Marlene was a combination of the name of his girlfriend Lili, with that of his friend’s girlfriend Marlene.
It was published as a poem in 1937 under the title of 'The Song of a Young Sentry' when it caught the attention of the composer Norbert Schultze who wrote music to ita and in 1938 and got Lale Andersen to sing it. It was first sung at a cabaret but this version was forbidden due to its anti-war message, one of the verses which ran:
Who recovers the bodies,Lost in desert sands?Who counts the victimson the oil-soaked beaches?Tell me, how much pain must pass,'til we see the waste and stupidity of it all?Oh God, Lilli Marleen

It landed Schultze in hot water with the authorities and in order to appease the Propaganda Ministry who could make or break his career he later came up with marches such as 'Bombs for England', which in turn landed him in trouble with the English after the war.
When the song was released it didn’t prove popular. The propaganda minister Josef Goebbels wanted to make a march out of it, which Andersen didn’t want and no radio station wanted to play it. When it was launched it only sold 700 copies.

In 1941 when the Germans occupied Yugoslavia they set up a radio station in Belgrade to broadcast to their troops. It was powerful enough to broadcast to most of Europe. Lieutenant Karl-Heinz Reintgen had the job of running the tiny station with rather limited resources. After the radio station was bombed he was left with only five records, three of which were banned. Therefore Reintgen had no option but to play the same two records again and again. It was assumed that the station in Belgrade would have a very limited audience and he played the Lili Marlene for his friend serving with the Afrika Korps who liked the song very much, until he couldn’t take it anymore and resolved never to play it again. What happened next shocked him. The station was inundated with letters and telegrammes from all over Europe requesting the song be played. One of the letters was even from an American, although America was now at war with Germany, requesting that Reintgen play a request for a friend of his. At the time the song was not been played in Germany as the propaganda ministry felt that the sad song was bad for morale and Andersen herself was forbidden to perform as she was consorting with Jews. Now everyone in Germany wanted to hear her sing it and the authorities were forced to back down. Field marshal Rommel also ranked among the legions of fans of the song and requested that it be permanently integrated into the programme. Thus every evening at 9:55, just before the station went off air the sad song echoed over the deserts of North Africa and soldiers on all sides listened in. For a brief moment they could reminisce about they love they had to leave behind back home. The station also proved to be a way of contacting the Allies. On one occasion an RAF pilot, who had been shot down was brought into the station under guard. He had been posted as missing and was anxious that his pregnant wife back in England know that he was alright.
The popularity of the song meant that it could be used for propaganda purposes and the BBC came up with a German version with a subtle anti-Hitler message, to remind the German troops that due to Hitler, their wives were suffering alone at home with the hardships of war. The British were becoming concerned that their soldiers were whistling and singing a German song and when several English soldiers were given a dressing down they responded by saying that someone should write an English version of it.
In 1944 Tommie Connor did just that and composed the English text in only 25 minutes. It was first sung in English by Anne Shelton. Over a million records of the song were sold in a month. It was also sung by Vera Lynn, Edith Piaf, Amanda Lear, Bing Crosby and Perry Como but it was Marlene Dietrich who immortalised the song for the Allies. Dietrich was originally from Germany but joined the American forces to help the fight against her fellow countrymen, something that Germans never forgave her for. She entertained the Allied troops with ‘The Girl under the Lantern’ both on radio and live performances in North-Africa, Sicily, Italy, Alaska, Greenland, Iceland, and England over a three year period. The theme of a soldier longing for his love was something people all over the world could understand, especially in a time of separation that the war had brought.
By the time the war had ended the song had been translated into 48 languages and its popularity didn’t show signs of waning. As late as the 1980s it was still been re-released into the charts. Never before had a single song captivated so many people and it has yet to find its equal.

Isolde of Dublin

The modern Dublin suburb of Chapelizod hardly gives any indication to any ancient link to one of Europe’s most famous love tales Tristan and Isolde. Many, including the Dubliners themselves, are unaware that the place name has nothing to do with lizards and the heroine of the Europe’s most tragic love tales was a Dubliner. I have followed the tales for years and my interest in it was first awoken while doing a seminar on Tristan and Isolde at the University of Vienna many years ago. It was there that I first became familiar with the Celtic roots of the story, which tied into my research on Irish legends. Chapelizod is said to be the burialplace of the Viking princess, though no known grave is known to survive.

Her name has several spelling variations as Iseult and Yseult. We have no proof that she ever existed. According to the popular legend Isolde was a Viking princess from Dublin and the daughter of an Irish king, King Aonghus who is supposed to have lived before the Vikings established the settlement of Dublin in 988 where the Dublin City Municipal Building now stands. Nobody knows for sure just how old the tale is, but the more ancient elements probably have Pictish roots.

The version of the tale I am most familiar is probably also the most complete and was written by Gottfried von Strassburg around 1215. It was this version that Richard Wagner used when he composed his famous opera Tristan and Isolde. It is essentially a mishmash of various Celtic legends and time. For example Isolde is obviously a Viking name, yet French is according to Gottfried the language spoken in Dublin. Earlier versions were composed by Thomas of Britain around 1160 and the 12th century Norman poet Béroul. A film version, albeit one very loosely based on the original tale, was made in 2006 with Sophia Myles playing Isolde.

The tale is something of a ménage à trois between the elderly King Mark of Cornwall, his nephew Tristan of Brittany and Isolde. Isolde is depicted as having fairy like beauty and both she and her mother, also called Isolde, have healing powers. After Tristan does battle with Morholt and beheads him, with echoes of the immram, he wanders adrift in a boat eventually reaching the Irish coast, where he is healed by Isolde. Mark wants to marry Isolde and sends his nephew to woo her on his behalf. There are parallels here with Diarmaid and Gráinne and Deirdre and Naoise. Indeed, Ireland of the 10th century had a wealth of love stories, many of which have long been forgotten. Brangaine, Isoldes’s lady-in-waiting is given a love potion which will make Isolde fall in love with the elderly king. Tristan and Isolde en route to Mark drink the love potion by mistake and fall for each other. They try to hide their love but find it impossible. Mark is furious and banishes his beloved nephew. The two lovers go on the run and are pursued by the jealous Mark and the tale inevitably ends in tragedy.

To give an indication of how old the tale could be a 9th century tower in the present Temple Bar area, called Isolde’s Tower, later rebuilt by the Normans formed part of the Dublin city wall. The river Poodle flowed by its walls. The Poodle itself, part of Dublin’s medieval heritage was forced underground as the city modernised. It rises in the Cookstown area of Tallaght and flows underground through a culvert where it enters the Liffey at Wellington Quay. The tower was demolished when the city walls were removed. Its remains were rediscovered when building work was been carried out between 1993-1997. The modern development was named duly Isolde’s Tower, but the actual remains were hidden away once more behind an iron grill. The developers were supposed to leave access to the Tower but the gate is always locked and a cultural aspect dating from the foundation of the settlement of Dublin itself has been pushed aside. The street leading up to where the tower once stood, Upper Exchange Street, was until recently, in a nod towards the past, called Sráid Iosóilde Uacht. (Isolde’s Street Upper). In a further blow to the city’s cultural heritage reference to Isolde has been recently removed from signage.

Sources:
http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2012/09/in-search-of-isolde-and-her-lost-tower.html
Ó Conghaile, Secret Dublin an Unusual Guide

If you like my blog posts you will definitely like my latest book- "Fadó Tales of Lesser known Irish History" which has just been published by Matador, an imprint of Troubador.

http://www.amazon.com/Fado-Tales-Lesser-Known-History/dp/1783061979/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381148288&sr=8-1&keywords=ronan+GEaroid+o+domhnaill

Check out my facebook site for recent updates:

https://www.facebook.com/fado.book.1

Other books written by Rónán Gearóíd Ó Domhnaill




http://www.amazon.com/irische-Mythen-Legenden-Ronan-ODomhnaill/dp/3863720091/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1381148288&sr=8-2-fkmr0&keywords=ronan+GEaroid+o+domhnaill

Loftus Hall

At first glance it is a big house like so many in the country, but Loftus Hall, located on Hook head in County Wexford has an eerie reputation and is said to be one of the most haunted places on the island. Local folklore has it that the hall was haunted both by the devil and by the ghost of a young woman.

The Redmond family built the original building about 1350 and lived there until the Cromwellian campaign, when their lands were confiscated and it was granted to the Loftus family in the 1650s. Charles Tottenham came to live in the mansion in the middle of the 18th century with his second wife and his daughter Anne.

The family like to play cards in the evening. One night during a storm, a ship unexpectedly arrived at Hook Peninsula. A young gentleman from the ship came to the house and was made welcome and he stayed a few nights. In other versions of the tale he arrived on horseback having lost his way.

Anne and the young man became very close and both had considerable success playing cards. One night as they played the young man dropped a card on the floor. Anne went to pick it up and as she did so she saw to her horror that the man had hooves for feet. She screamed in horror as the young man, realising the game was up vanished in a puff of smoke leaving a hole in the ceiling where he exited. It was said that the hole could be properly repaired. Of course the cloven foot could be explained by a clubfoot, which was much misunderstood at the time.

Though the mysterious stranger had departed his presence remained and poltergeist activity made his presence known. Protestant clergymen were called upon to exorcise the house, but failed. Though the penal Laws were in force the family sought the help of Father Thomas Broaders, who lived locally and he exorcised the house. When he died in 1773 his tomb in Horetown Cemetery was inscribed with the following epitaph:

"here lies the body of Thomas Broaders,

Who did good and prayed for all.

And banished the Devil from Loftus Hall."

Anne never recovered from the shock of that night and lost her mind. She was put in her favourite room in the mansion, known as the Tapestry Room, where she would spend the rest of her days. She refused food and drink and sat with her knees under her chin until she died there in 1775 aged 31. It is said that when she died, they could not straighten her body as her muscles had seized and she was buried in the same sitting position in which she had died.

There may have been a more credible explanation however for her supposed mental illness and it was said that Anne had shared her bed with the young man and suddenly found herself in the ‘family way’. The young man was either no longer around when her pregnancy was discovered or her father disapproved of him. At the time such pregnancies would have been viewed as a disgrace and it would not have been unusual for her to have been locked away out of sight, never to be spoken of again.

Given that her life had been an unhappy one it is not surprising that her ghost remained on in her beloved Tapestry Room.

A number of encounters with Anne’s ghost are recorded. The father of the Rev. George Reade stayed with a large party at the Hall some time about 1790, and was given the Tapestry Chamber to sleep in. He described how something heavy leapt upon his bed, growling like a dog. The curtains were torn back and the clothes stripped from the bed. At first he assumed that someone was playing a trick, but searching the room he found no one and the door was locked. Several years later, when the 2nd Marquess of Ely was at the Hall, his valet, Shannon, was put in the Tapestry Chamber and woke the whole household by his screams in the night. He reported that the curtains of the bed had been violently torn back and he saw a tall lady dressed in stiff brocaded silk. He refused to spend another night in the room.

When the Rev. George Reade and his father came to stay George chose the Tapestry Chamber as his bedroom. As he stayed up late reading a magazine, he saw the door open and a tall lady in a stiff dress pass silently through the room to a closet in the comer, where she disappeared. He did not realise that he had just witnessed a ghostly apparition until it happened again the next night and he tried to grab her. His arm went right through her. The ghost does not appear to have terrorised him and although aware of the tale continued to sleep in that particular room whenever he found himself at the hall.

This was not the case with Rev. Charles Dale, tutor to the young marquess, who slept in the room in the latter half of the 19th century and though taciturn about what he had witnessed was left visibly shaken. By 1868 The Tapestry Chamber had become a billiards-room but spirits do not appreciate changes to their haunts and the servants reported that her ghost made considerable noise by knocking the billiard balls about.

It was perhaps because of the continued hauntings that the hall was demolished in 1870 and rebuilt. The present structure dates from this time and was the residence of the 4th Marquess of Ely. In 1917 Loftus Hall was bought by the Sisters of Providence and turned into a convent and a school for young girls interested in joining the order and later by the Rossminians from 1937 until 1983. In 1983 reopened it as "Loftus Hall Hotel", which operated until 1990s. The site has been examined by a paranormal investigator who claimed to have felt a presence there. The site stands on 70 acres of land and includes five reception rooms and twenty-two bedrooms. It was sold again in 2008 to an unknown buyer.

The Recess Boycott

This summer driving through Connemara I pulled into Sraith Salach, (Willow Stream) as Recess is now officially called, on the N59 Galway Clifden Road. All Gaeltacht villages throughout Ireland now only have the Irish name, though it caused such a furore in Dingle/ Daingean that they made an exception. The village consists of a shop, pub and marble shop. My friends were eager to photo the statue of the Connemara giant designed to lure tourists into stopping.

I went across to the shop and addressed the local shop assistant in Irish. I speak Irish, but it is useless to me if I never use it. Though they appeared to understand they answered me in English. I continued in Irish and they became aggravated. This is Connemara- Irish is sometimes welcome, sometimes not and impossible to say in advance where it is welcome and where it will be met with hostility.

Still wondering about the situation I just experienced we drove past a primary school and I suddenly thought of Bríd Ní Dhomhnaill, no relative, but subject of a bizarre boycott of the eighties which would last for five years.

The school opened in 1975 and though situated in the Gaeltacht, English was the language of instruction there. The new principal, Bríd Ní Dhomhnaill, opposed this. According to Ní Dhomhnaill only one parent was adamant that English remain the language of instruction and she went and spoke to the parents individually explaining the importance of Irish to them. She also tried to promote the rich cultural heritage of the area to her pupils, which was undeniably intertwined with the Irish language. In the eyes of her enemies she became a ’language fanatic’. Today it is slowly becoming obvious that we are terrible at languages, whether continental or our ‘first official language’. What Bríd Ni Dhomhnaill, as an educational professional, wanted to do was to teach her pupils enough Irish so that they would have more than the pathetic cúpla focal, which would today be seen as an advantage. In the eighties, however the local parents saw emigration as the only future for their children and believed Irish would be of little use.

She also crossed swords with the Catholic Church when she demanded that the mass be said in Irish only as opposed to bilingual, which usually meant the odd Irish word here and there but mostly English. She claimed that the priest, Father Gabriel Charles, could not, or would not speak the language of the local people. Religion is a very personal thing and it would be no exaggeration to say that elderly parishioners would have been more comfortable with Irish than English. The priest warned her against meddling in church affairs and that if she continued to do so he would press the Department of Education for her dismissal.

The problem with that is that there were no reasonable grounds to dismiss her. She did her job to the letter and though malicious allegations of incompetence were made against her, the Department of Education could not find fault with her. Nevertheless parents withdrew their children from her class and engaged the services of a private teacher. Though her union, the INTO, supported her they could not resolve the matter.

The boycott continued and though the private teacher appointed by the parents was removed she was replaced by another teacher, paid by the department of education, a bizarre move.

The strange thing is that nobody was really sure what the boycott was all about; was it that she had challenged the church on a civil rights matter or that she was doing the job she was paid to do? Possibly part of the problem was that she was too enthusiastic about Irish. She saw the Irish speaking culture of the locality being eroded and tried to stem the tide, determined that the Irish language would not become a foreign language as it had in other parts of the country.

Another teacher would have just gone with the flow and acquiesced to whatever demands parents made, but Bríd Ní Dhomhnaill was a woman of principle with a strong sense of right and wrong. She described her predicament as being ‘recessed’, whereby although she had done no wrong she was bypassed by both parents and the Department of Education. She still had to be paid for turning up to an empty classroom. It was a bizarre situation that should never have happened or gone on as long as it did.

Many hoped that when Father Charles was replaced by Father John Cosgrove that the situation would improve. It did not and the parents were as determined as ever that English remain the language of a Gaeltacht school. The school eventually closed in 1991 and Bríd Ní Dhomhnaill was transferred to a Gaelscoil in Galway city. Today the boycott has been forgotten about, though still has the power to provoke strong reactions if mentioned in conversation. Many in Galway, a county which sees itself as a champion of Irish culture would prefer it that way. Even today there are teachers who are afraid of being too enthusiastic about teaching Irish for fear of aggravating reluctant pupils and drawing the ire on the parents, yet a common complaint is that people cannot speak a word of Irish after twelve years of learning the subject. For me as a language teacher it is disturbing that though have improved for Gaeilgeoirí it still happens that the standard of Irish taught in school is dictated by parents and not the Department of Education.

Carrowntryla House

Carrowntryla House was one of the ‘Big Houses’ in Dunmore, County Galway and is a place of personal interest to me as it was in this house that my grandmother was born in 1915. Her father, a former RIC constable, was the caretaker there until 1928. It is not known for certain where the name comes from. In its corrupt English form it appears to have several spelling variations. Carrown is a corruption of Ceathrú meaning quarther and Tryla possibly comes from traonach meaning corncrake, a bird which the like the Irish language is no longer native to the area.

The house was first owned by the Catholic Burkes, who drummed up support for King James at Aughrim, which did them few favours. In 1753 they had to sell and the house passed into the possession of the Henry family in the 1770s. Their only daughter, Anne married William Hancock, son of Reverend Elias Handcock of Cavan in 1802. The Handcocks, originally from Devon had been in Ireland since the 14th century but had hitherto stayed east of the Shannon.

Their son William Henry Handcock, against his parents’ wishes, married Catherine Josephine Kelly in 1824. The estate at the time had an income of £4,000 per annum. She was considered a great beauty and the couple had three daughters Josephine, Anne Mary and Honoria. Josephine kept a diary and described the grandeur of the time with the family dividing their time between Dublin, London and Paris, receiving visitors such as the Lord Lieutenant. Her diary entries made fond references to her father but she wrote less affectionately of her mother. Handcock accused his wife of having an affair and they separated in 1841. His wife had visited Portumna Castle, home of Ulick John de Burgh, the Earl of Clanricarde (1802-74) and absentee landlord, ambassador to Russia and later Postmaster General. In 1841 she gave birth to a boy whom she called John Delacour and was passed from relative to relative, believing he was an orphan. Handcock went to France and when he became sick was treated by Clanricarde’s physician. Before he died in 1843 he was encouraged by Clanricarde, who appeared to be trying to reconcile the family, to change his will making Catherine guardian of three daughters who would inherit Carrowntryla. Catherine took the girls to Paris but they returned to Carrowntryla during the turmoil of the 1848 unrest. Though left financially well off by her late husband Catherine was wont to complain of how poor she was and neglected the girls to the extent that they had neither proper food nor clothes and led lives of misery. By contrast when Delacour came to visit he was indulged and both she and her son seemed to despise the three girls. Josephine made a will, drawn by Lord Clanricarde bequeathing £10,000 to her mother in the event of her sister's marrying, but giving the whole estates to her mother if Honoria should die without leaving any children. Josephine died in 1849 and Anne Mary in 1851.They may have died of TB, induced undoubtedly by the poor living conditions mother had enforced on them. It was said and is still said to this day, that they were murdered when their mother laced the daughter’s dancing slippers with arsenic. Arsenic kills slowly and is hard to detect. In an 1855 article from The New York Times entitled ‘Another Romance in Irish High Life’ the mother, who died in 1853, was portrayed as a cruel villain who had treated her daughters most inhumanely stating that “greater cruelty was never exercised by a gaoler in the worst of times that this unnatural mother displayed towards her daughters”. The article summed up by saying that ‘the death of her children seemed to be the object of her life’. Indeed some commentators suggested the marriage in 1824 was part of an elaborate scheme between herself and Clanricarde with a view to getting the estate. Honoria died nine months later without leaving a will. The eleven year old Delacour became beneficiary of the estate. The claim was challenged by William’s brother, John Stratford Hancock who argued that an illegitimate son had no inheritance rights. The matter came to court and attracted considerable media attention both nationally and internationally. The case went on for two weeks and Clanricarde though distancing himself from the proceedings used his influence to get a compromise. It was decided that, though Carrowntryla would remain with the Handcocks, Delacour would have to be compensated to the sum of £20,000. It was a massive sum and had Handcock had to mortgage the estate to finance it. Clanrickard denied Delacour was his son and also played down his dealings with the Handcocks in general. He claimed that he was in Russia when Delacour was conceived. Josephine’s diary was produced which placed him at Portumna Castle in 1840 when her mother was said to have visited. Delacour squandered most of his inheritance on gambling, served with the 11th Hussars was a close friend of Randolph Churchill. The scandal resurface when the writer Hannah Lynch (1862-1904), a close friend of Douglas Hyde and Fanny Parnell, spent time at Carrowntryla as a governess. Her first novel "Through Troubled Waters" (1885, reprinted 2011), was a thinly fictionalised account of the Handcocks, in today’s parlance a ‘tell all account ‘of what life was like there. Critics described the plot as unpleasant but not without merit. A contemporary review of the book in The Spectator was critical of the horror aspect of the novel and had the following to say:

‘The woman who poisons her daughters to secure the inheritance for her son is a monstrous creation which might very well have been dispensed with’.

Very few original copies survived as both the Handcocks and Clanricarde bought and burnt them. By the 1870s the estate would have reached its zenith and consisted of 9,500 acres. The Handcocks also owned a considerable amount of land in Tuam and leased the land where the Cathedral now stands for a shilling a year. Times were changing in Ireland however and when Land War started in 1879 the tenants sought to buy the land which they farmed. A considerable part of the estate was sold off to cover debts. By the 1880s the Handcock’s children were resettling to The US, particularly Sundance Wyoming and Canada. The Land Commission tried to buy the estate but were out were outbid by Sir Henry Lopes and Mr Fitzwilliam Hume Dick. On the death of the latter his nephew and heir Captain Quintin Hume Dick (1849-1923) bought out the other mortgage and in 1897 went to live there. He was still living there in 1906 and the property was still in his name in 1910. The only occupant of the house however according to the 1911 census was 65 year old Daniel Kilcommons. Patrick Burke also 65 was listed as the gatekeeper. The Land Commission finally took over the estate in 1914. My great grandfather, John Deneny, was by this stage living and working there as the caretaker.

The Handcock of whom my grandmother always spoke was Major Gerald Carlile Stratford Handcock (1858-1938). His portrait once hung at the Museum in Galway but has since been removed. He served in the Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment also known as The Green Howards. The regiment fought in the Maadi campaign in the Sudan, on the North West Frontier in India and in the Boer War in South Africa. Handcock was also a collector of antiquities gathered while stationed in Egypt in the 1880s and he sold a collection of Cypriot lead and selenite curse tablets to The British Museum in 1891. His niece, Evelyn Handcock Ferguson would later sell a large number of ancient Cypriot items in 1940 to The National Museum in Dublin. He was the last of the Handcocks to live at Carrowntryla when he moved from Athlone back to the ancestral home in 1928 and managed to acquire a hundred acres. He died in 1938 and was buried with his parents in the Augustinian Friary in the centre of Dunmore where the tomb still remains. His niece, a Mrs Voss inherited the house. Trying to run a house of what is believed to have been fifty rooms would have cost a considerable amount. Rates on such houses at the time were high and though such houses would today be considered tourist attractions and part of our heritage they were poorly regarded at the time and considered unwanted remnants of our colonial past. She sold the house to a Galway developer Hector McDonnell. The contents of the house were auctioned off, the man-made lake drained, the old trees felled and today not a single stone of the house remains. The orchard wall was saved from demolition and it contains an archway believed to have been taken from an ancient wall in Tuam. The closed family crypt where the unfortunate girls found their final resting place was left intact and today serves as a reminder to greed and cruelty.

Dan O'Hara - lyrics to the song

Sure it's poor I am today
For God gave and took away
And He left without a home poor Dan O'Hara
With these matches in my hand
In the frost and snow I stand
So it's here I am today your broken hearted


Refrain:
A chusla geal mo chroi*, won't you buy
a box from me
And you'll have the prayers of Dan from Connemara
I'll sell them cheap and low, buy a box before you go
From the broken hearted farmer Dan O'Hara



In the year of sixty-four
I had acres by the score
And the grandest land you ever ran a plough through
But the landlord came you know
And he laid our home so low
So it's here I am today your broken hearted


For twenty years or more
Did misfortune cross our door
My poor old wife and I were sadly parted
We were scattered far and wide
And our children starved and died
So it's here I am today your broken hearted


Though in frost and snow I stand
Sure the shadow of God's hand
It lies warm about the brow of Dan O'Hara
And soon with God above
I will meet the ones I love
And I'll find the joys I lost in Connemara




*a chuisle geal mo chroí / a kwishla gal mo kree/ = love of my heart