The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #61509   Message #990843
Posted By: George Seto - af221@chebucto.ns.ca
25-Jul-03 - 08:55 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Paddy Lynch's Boat
Subject: Lyr Add: THE COUNTY OF MAYO (George Fox)
Found at http://www.pgil-eirdata.org/html/pgil_datasets/authors/f/Fox,George/life.htm

Quotations

"The County of Mayo"

`On the deck of Patrick Lynch's boat I sat in woeful plight,
Through my sighing all the weary day and weeping all the night.
Were it not that full of sorrow from my people forth I go,
By the blessed sun, 'tis royally I'd sing thy praise, Mayo.
 

When I dwelt at home in plenty, and my gold did much abound,
In the company of fair young maids the Spanish ale went round.
Tis a bitter change from those gay days that now I'm forced to go,
And must leave my bones in Santa Cruz, far from my own Mayo.
 
They are altered girls in Irrul now; 'tis proud they're grown and high,
With their hair-bags and their top-knots - for I pass their buckles by.
But it's little now I heed their airs, for God will have it so,
That 1 must de art for foreign lands, and leave my sweet . p Mayo.
 

'Tis my grief that Patrick Loughlin is not Earl in Irrul still,
And that Brian Duff no longer rules as Lord upon the Hill;
And that Colonel Hugh McGrady should be lying dead and low,
And I sailing, sailing swiftly from the county of Mayo.'
 
(Printed in Brendan Kenneally, ed., Penguin Book of Irish Verse, 1970; also quoted by W. B. Yeats in his "List of 30 Best Irish Books", Daily Express, 27 Feb. 1895; see Wade, ed., Letters, p.246, with ed. note, `a translation fro the Irish of Thoams Lavelle, by George Fox (?1809-after 1848) [... &c.]'.
 
Notes
According to Frank O'Connor (Book of Ireland, 1979, p.53, the Irish original of `The County of Mayo' was by Thomas Lavelle, a 17th c. writer.