Drumshambo: July 12th

The dead from the Great Hunger, with no names, lie and are remembered. The Orangemen, for all their pomp, their names are largely forgotten.

I walk where Orangemen don’t do now
Who walked this day so long ago
When our folk stayed off of the road
As they passed, banners on show
To fife and drum, their sashes blew
As they still do up north today
But I walk here now, passing their church
In Drumshambo, on Orange Day.

I walked past the famine graveyard
I stopped to say a prayer
And wrote that once a poet passed
And stopped by their graves there
Who have no names, but lie beside the Piper
As verse I write in Italic font
As I left, I blessed myself
From the rain filled holy water font.

All are dead now, the famine dead and the Orangemen
Who walked there those times now past
Tyranny and pride will have its day
But it’s day will never last.
I walk beside Lough Allen
Returning into town,
I resolve to write of the Famine dead
To curse the Orangemen and the Crown.

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