Brayton - Sligo Poets

Go to content

Main menu:

1914 > Sligo Poetry 1914 > Sligo Nationalist

      Sligo Nationalist 17 January 1914.
                Old Father Donohoe.

On Father Kelly’s Sunday in the Chapel of Kilmell,
The congregation hurries to be in before the bell;
You may see them making short-cuts over many a ditch and gate
For woe unto the stragglers that he catches coming late!
But easy and contented on our friendly way we go
When comes the Sunday morning Mass of Father Donohoe.

On Father Kelly’s Sunday all lads step up before;
He doesn’t like a rear brigade to block the Chapel door;
And it isn’t on one knee they’d kneel, with eyes on me or you,
Their book is open in the hands, their beads is well in view.
For Father Kelly’s spectacles reviews them row by row,
They little fear the priest they love, old Father Donohoe.

When Father Kelly preaches all the congregation sit
In such a shroud of silence you can feel the chill of it;
There’s not a baby dares to cry, a sleepy man to nod,
When Father Kelly tells them of the awful Might of God.
But like a neighbour talking in the homely way we know
Is the half-an-hour discoursing of old Father Donohoe.

All praises to Father Kelly, sure he’s fine to build and hold,
But little Father Donohoe is worth his weight in gold;
There’s not a child around Kilmell with sense enough to stand
That wouldn’t leave its mammy to be holding to his hand;
There’s not a dog that ever barked defiance to a foe
But wags its tail half off his back for Father Donohoe.

When Father Kelly makes his rounds we scrub and paint and clean
Till the parlour that receives him might accommodate a queen,
But by the kitchen fireside, Father Donohoe instead
Will have a rousing cup of tea and a slice of griddle bread.
Then ’tis about the children and the farm he’ll want to know—
God bless the loving soul of him, old Father Donohoe!

God bless good Father Kelly too, a leader born and bred,
For what would Kilmell parish be without him at the head?
He holds us to our duty and he guides us up Above;
But there’s another plot that we follow all for love
And many a time I think that One Who left His flock to go
For one poor blundering sheep may be like Father Donohoe.

TERESA BRAYTON.

         Sligo Nationalist 6 June 1914
                 Sing a Song of Leitrim.

Sing a song of Leitrim lad, of Leitrim in the morn,
Where busy little bits of wind are stirring up the corn;
When "Arrah, but 'tis early yet," the sleepy grasses cry,
"For Venus's gold petticoat is yet upon the sky."
Sing a song of Leitrim, lad, (I keep it in my prayer),
And the kindest face in Ireland inside a cabin there.

Sing a song of Leitrim, with the big clouds sailing down,
As fierce and as wild as Finn MacCool until they reach the town,
And then 'tis with a laugh they go in rings of rainy mist,
While sore you'd be to see them flee and leave you there unkissed;
Sing a song of Leitrim with the heather left and right,
And the kindest face in Ireland that is gone to God to-night.


Sing a song of Leitrim, where the day goes down to rest,
Like a little baby foostering to find its mammy's breast;
Where the robin, like a gorsoon that is hard to get to bed,
Sings out "Good-night" a hundred times before he hides his head.
Sing a song of Leitrim, with the mountains in a row,
And the kindest face in Ireland that I left three years ago.

Sing a song of Leitrim, and the old place root and stem,
With the neighbours all about me, and myself just one of them;
Of the fine flahoolah women and the friendly farming men,
And the love I'll never know, avic, outside of it again;
Sing a song of Leitrim, lad, the place I'll see no more,
And my mother's face (God rest her soul) beside the cabin door.

                                                           (Mrs.) Teresa Brayton.

 
Back to content | Back to main menu