Hurling in Italy
LAST WEEK I WAS bemoaning the lack of verses about hurling in our book, Ireland’s Other Poetry. So I was interested when a kind reader sent me an email (to irelandsotherpoetry@hotmail.com) saying that Lyric FM had recently broadcast an interesting song on the subject, called ‘The Brigade’s Hurling Match’. It appears on Éamonn Ó Faogáin’s new CD called ‘Mo Chamán Bán’ (or ‘The White Hurley’). A little research quickly revealed that it was written by Robert Dwyer Joyce (1830-1883), a writer and traditional music collector whose work was in its day enormously successful in both Ireland and the United States. RD’s brother was Patrick Weston Joyce, whose Irish Names of Places is even now still the best source for information on the meaning and background of our placenames. (Incidentally, it was from this branch of the Joyce clan, living in the Ballyhoura Hills from the early 19th century, that the author of Ulysses was descended.)
RD Joyce’s speciality was the patriotic verse, and his most famous song is probably ‘The Boys of Wexford’. He also wrote ‘The Wind that Shakes the Barley’, which gave its name to the recent award-winning film by Ken Loach. This one is based on a story that Joyce heard in the Cork-Limerick border country where he grew up. It seems to be based on a (presumably apocryphal) incident during the War of Spanish Succession at the beginning of the 18th century, when the ‘Irish Brigade’ were fighting in Northern Italy on behalf of Louis XIV (the ‘Lewis’ of the final verse). My co-editor Hector McDonnell tells me that at this stage they were generally using muskets, but the song makes it evident that they had their sabres with them – useful for whittling a set of hurleys (or camáns) for the team as well as for eviscerating the enemy. If anyone can identify which battle this is, I would be delighted.
The Brigade’s Hurling Match
In the South’s blooming valleys they sing and they play,
By their vine-shaded cots at the close of the day;
But a game like our own the Brigade never saw –
The wild, sweeping hurlings of Erinn go Bragh.
Our tents they were pitched upon Lombardy’s plain;
Ten days nigh the foeman our army had lain;
But ne’er through his towers made we passage or flaw,
Till we showed them the game played in Erinn go Bragh.
Our sabres were sharp, and a forest was nigh,
There our hurleys we fashioned ere morning rose high;
With the goal-ball young Mahon had brought from Dunlawe,
We showed them the game played in Erinn go Bragh.
Our captain stood out with the ball in his hand;
Our colonel he gave us the word of command;
Then we dashed it and chased it o’er esker and scragh,
While we showed them the game played in Erinn go Bragh.
The enemy stood on their walls high and strong,
While we raced it, and chased it, and dashed it along;
And they opened their gates as we nearer did draw,
To see the wild game played in Erinn go Bragh.
We left the round ball in its roaring career,
We turned on the foe with a wild ringing cheer –
Ah! They ne’er through our bright dauntless stratagem saw,
While we showed them the game played in Erinn go Bragh!
Their swords clashed around us, their balls raked us sore,
But with hurleys we payed them in hard knocks galore;
For their bullets and sabres we cared not a straw
While we showed them the game played in Erinn go Bragh.
The fortress is taken, our wild shouts arise,
For our land and King Lewis they swell to the skies –
Ah! He laughed as he told us a game he ne’er saw
Ireland's Other Poetry 