Young Warren - Sligo Poets

Sligo Champion 12 October 1912

Mr. Young Warren, Sligo.

The following lines have been addressed to Mr. Young Warren by a friend who saw him compete for the 50 guinea Challenge Cup for tea blending at the recent London Exhibition:—

Who at the Agricultural Hall
In London town, in contest tall,
On your own merits, beat them all—
                            Young Warren.

Yes; won the Challenge Cup so grand,
Among the best you took your stand,
And now we’re proud to shake your hand—
                            Young Warren.

You’d many wondrous wins before
(This capped the lot), at least a score;
We hope you’ll win yet many more—
                            Young Warren.

You best them every one who came,
So on the cup engrave the fame
Of him we’re proud to call by name—
                            Young Warren.

You must have mixed your Teas quite right,
You judged by palate, nose and sight,
Of you we’ll sing with all our might—
                            Young Warren.

This poem in praise of Young Warren's success in London was printed in the Champion but not in the other newspapers though they all gave prominence to his success.

The poem is a clever, lively praise poem with good use of the subject's name as a refrain. The use of three line stanzas with three full rhymes add to the brio of the piece. Unfortunately no author is given.

Young Warren was a native of the Drumcliff area. A George Warren married Rebecca Young in 1817 and in subsequent generations a son seems always to have been named Young Warren.

The man who set up a grocery business in Sligo town is in the 1901 Census in Dundalk, a grocer's assistant. He is in John Street, Sligo in the 1911 Census. The Sligo Times in February 1912 mentions that Young Warren came to Sligo nine years previously.

In an advertisement in the Sligo Times in 1912 his premises are given as being in Radcliffe Street, Sligo though this street had been renamed Gratten Street by the nationalist Corporation in 1898.