Patrick Sheehan

My name is Patrick Sheehan, and my years are forty-four;
Tipperary is my native place, not far from Galtimore;
I come of honest parents, but now they're lying low;
And many's the happy hour I spent in the Glen of Aherlow.

My father died; I clos'd his eyes, outside the cabin door;
The landlord and the sheriff too, were there the day before,
And then my poor old mother, and my sisters three, also,
Were forced to go with broken hearts, from the Glen of Aherlow

For six long weeks, in search of work, I wandered far and near;
I then went to the poorhouse to see my mother dear;
The news I heard near broke my heart, but still in all my woe,
I blessed the friends who dug her grave in the Glen of ;Aherlow.

Bereft of friends, of kith and kin, and plenty all around,
I slept outside that cabin, and I slept upon the ground;
But cruel as my lot it was, I ne'er did hardship know,
Till I joined the English army, far away from Aherlow.

Wake up there," says the corporal, "you lazy Irish hound!
Why don't you hear, you sleepy dog, the cail: 'To ar-ums', sound?
Alas. I had been dreaming of days long, long ago,
I woke before Sebastopoi, and not in Aherlow

I groped to find my musket, oh how dark I thought the night!
O blessed God! It was not dark, but in the broad daylight!
And when I found that I was blind, oh, my tears began to flow,
And I longed for even a pauper's grave in the Glen of Aherlow.

A poor neglected mendicant, I walked from street to street,
My nine months' pension it being gone, I beg from all I meet;
Since I joined my country's tyrants, oh, my face I'll never show,
Amongst the kind old neighbors in the Glen of Aherlow.

Now Irish boys, dear countrymen, take heed to what I say;
If you ever join the English ranks, you will surely rue the clay,
And if ever you are tempted, a-soldiering to go.
Remember Patrick Sheehan from the Glen of Aherlow.

DT #750
Laws J11
RG
apr97