This fro Donal O'Sullivan's Songs of the Irish
Jim Carroll

CARRAIG AONAIR THE LONE ROCK

On that Monday of woe far away you did row,
Calm and peaceful the sea was an hour ere dawn's glow.
Ah! you little did know that cold death hovered low—
That sad day still haunts me wherever I go.

Young Donal, ah! he was the babe of the three,
Two weeks from their sailing he came back to me;
With the wind on the lee and the waves running free,
A pale lifeless corpse he returned from the sea.

And Thomas, he too has left me to rue,
So handsome, so sturdy, a man through and through.
With the hasp of his shoe he wrote out the clue,
That the Lone Rock had claimed him her lover to woo.

Lastly Cormac, my pet, I've not mentioned him yet,
A comelier huntsman no man ever met.
The best salmon he'd net, the best woodcock he'd get,
In the pools, on the hills, in fair weather and wet.

This coming Yule-tide all joy is denied
To my white-breasted boys that lie under the tide.
Were they with me who died,
I would keen them with pride,
And in Aghadown I'd lay them in the grave, side by side.

My grey hairs would have ease had I granted their pleas
To take ship with Sir James and to join the Wild Geese.
But there's now no release from this grief without cease,
And the Lone Rock for ever is wedded to these.

I recall you were fain to cross over to Spain,
In the ranks of King Louis our freedom to gain,
But my woe and my bane! you lie deep in the main,
Your drowned faces deny me all surcease of pain.

My poor daughter! don't weep! If he's lost on the deep,
You may still wed another who will sow for you and reap.
For me—lonely I creep, and my vigil I keep,
My strong-armed young stalwarts come between me and sleep.

My dead sons! do you know the depth of my woe,
As withered and gaunt through the household I go ?
Sad and sadder I grow as I pace to and fro,
While your step-mother cares not what's grieving me so.

When to God's house I steal my frenzy to heal,
And my eyes meet the spot where my boys used to kneel,
Like salmon in creel I shiver and reel,
Great God! must I suffer the torment I feel?

When I climb the hill side and the sea opens wide,
And I view the Lone Rock, ' tis as if I had died.
Back at home as I bide my tears flow like a tide,
And the Lone Rock eternal remains my sons' bride.
DONAL O'SULLIVAN

Narrative translaton
On that fatal Monday there came a deceptive calm, And you went from me a short half-hour before daybreak, To go fishing in a boat and to be drowned far away, To get a New Year's gift [of fish], and I shall die after your loss.

Donal, my beloved, was the youngest of my children, And it was a fortnight from that day that he came ashore, Without strength or vigour, without life in his heart, But with his soft white limbs spread on the waves.

Thomas was my treasure, the flower of young men, Mannerly and handsome he was, well-bred, beautifully built. With the buckle of his shoe he wrote on the rudder That the Lone Rock would be his spouse for ever.

And there is another of my children I have not mentioned yet, Cormac, my darling, the prop of my household. He would bring the deer from the wood, and the salmon from the pool, Black mountain plover and grouse as well.

This coming Christmas will be a joyless Christmas For my four, fair, white-breasted ones under the tide. Could they but return to me who are deep in the sea, Well would I keen them and lay them in Aghadown !

Ah ! woe is me that I did not let them go aboard ship Along with Sir James in the wake of the Wild Geese ! Then I should have hoped in Christ for their society again, And that the Lone Rock would not be my children's spouse.

'Tis a thousand pities you did not go to Spain, Or to help the French and to spoil your foes, Since I have seen the day when you went away to be drowned, And I cannot look for your help, or hope to die.

My beloved daughter, do not weep, do not grieve, For you will get a choice husband who will dig for you and maintain you. I shall not get my company, nor my three joyous lads, Nor my fine, well-bred quartet of strong stalwarts.
My darling children, do you not pity me, Your poor lonely father weeping and crying? A heavy, withered, gaunt man in a lonely corner of the house, While the woman who has your mother's place is untouched by my suffering.

When I enter the house of God and kneel down, And look at the corner where my three sons used to read [their prayers], There comes into my breast a pain that will never be cured. Great God! am I not to be pitied in my helpless torment ?

When I climb on the ditch and look downwards, When I see the Lone Rock my heart bursts.
Back I go again to the top of my house, And it is the Lone Rock that is my children's spouse.

This poignant lament was composed by a native of south-west Cork for his three sons and a son-in-law, drowned at sea. They went fishing a few days before Christmas and were wrecked on Carraig Aonair ("The Lone Rock"). This rock is situated four and a half miles south-west of Cape Clear, the most southerly point of Ireland. The Fastnet Lighthouse, first built on the rock in i 853, is a familiar object to voyagers to and from the United States. The four young men managed to scramble to temporary safety, and before being overcome by the rising tide one of the sons scratched a last message on the rudder of the wrecked boat with the buckle of his shoe, to tell what their fate had been. The son-in-law is not mentioned by name, but he is alluded to in verse 8. Aghadown, where the father wished his boys to be buried, is on the mainland, opposite Clear Island.
As is well known, "The Wild Geese" was the name given to those Irish soldiers who left Ireland after the Capitulation of Limerick in 1691 and took service in the armies of the Continent. If the victims of the tragedy had been in a position to join them, as the poem suggests, it must have been composed not long after their departure; and for this reason it is the more noteworthy that the name "Wild Geese" is given in English. "Na Geadhna Fiadhaine", which is the Irish equivalent, is frequently seen since the Irish language revival movement began in modern times; but there is no evidence that the Wild Geese were so called by their contemporaries.
The Sir James mentioned in the sixth verse may be Sir James FitzEdmund Cotter, of Baile na Speire (Anngrove), near Carrigtuohill, County Cork. Sir James was a distin¬guished adherent of the Stuarts and slew the regicide John Lisle at Lausanne in 1664. King James appointed him Governor of the City of Cork "and the Great Island near it" (Cove) in February, 1690; and during the wars of 1690—1691 he commanded for the King in Munster until the Capitulation.
The name of the author of the lament is remembered traditionally in Clear Island as Conchubhar O Laoghaire (Conor O'Leary). It is worthy to be chronicled here as that of a true poet. On the other hand, Crofton Croker took down a version of which he published a translation (but not, unfortunately, the original) in his Researches in the South of Ireland (1 824), p. 175; and he there gives the name as O'Donoghue.