This poem always brings back wonderful memories of my childhood. I remember Mrs McKibbon and her daughters coming to our house. Mrs McKibbon would tell stories that would frighten the lives out of us while the wind wailed and moaned round the kitchen door (stepmothers breath). After we were suitably scared out of our wits her daughter Rosaleen would step forward with only the light of the fire casting long shadows across the room and she lower her head slightly and begin to recite:


WEE HUGHIE
Elizabeth Shane

He's gone to school, wee Hughie,
An' him not four,
Sure I saw the fright was in him
When he left the door.
But he took a hand o' Denny,
An' a hand o' Dan,
Wi' Joe's owld coat upon him—
Och, the poor wee man!

He cut the quarest figure,
More stout nor thin;
An' trottin' right an' steady
Wi' his toes turned in.
I watched him to the corner
O' the big turf stack,
An' the more his feet went forrit,
Still his head turned back.

He was lookin', would I call him—
Och, my heart was woe—
Sure it's lost I am without him,
But he be to go.
I followed to the turnin'
When they passed it by,
God help him, he was cryin',
An', maybe, so was I.


The poem was written in the Ulster dialect by Elizabeth Shane, a vicar's daughter from Donegal. The last verse always gives me trouble as well in the lump in the throat department incidentally. Den