|
|
|
|
Rare Clonmel
Oh, Sweet Clonmel, I now must leave thee
To seek a foreign home,
For years, perhaps for ever, from thee afar to roam,
I grieve to leave thy fields and wild woods;
'Tis hard to say farewell.
But far from my home of childhood
I’ll think of thee Clonmel.
It’s Oh Rare Clonmel, my boys,
It’s Oh Rare Clonmel,
The river Suir that runs so pure
To Carrick from Clonmel.
Then fill your glasses now, my boys,
And drink to our native soil.
May heaven’s hand protect our lands,
And bless the sons of toil.
Here soon may Erin’s willing ear,
Arise and I foretell,
The first in the field,
And the last to yield,
Are the boys of Rare Clonmel
Rare Clonmel
James Mulcahy Lyons
Sweet Clonmel from an exile son, in his hour of sad adieu
As a loving gift the title rare came gracefully to you;
For you are rare in history and proved of patriot heart
No fairer daughter e’er has sprung from Nature wed to Art!
Your generous sons are fearless, true; your daughters
winsome pure!
The bays that bind your beauteous brows with glory guild the
Suir!
They’re plucked from every realm of fame where genius
trophies won,
To crown the mother, Clonmel, by a daughter or a son,
Whose proudest thought of triumph was to win for her the
bay,
As throned amid the Golden Vale she rules their hearts for
aye!
Sterne and Downling wrestled laurels from the fields of
literature,
And their genius woke from slumber to the crooning of the
Suir;
O’er three centuries have faded since “The Faerie Queene”
saw light.
Then the Saxon bard who wrote it sung of Clonmel with
delight.
If the Spoiler, Edmond Spenser, could but of her charms tell,
Who will chide her Celtic children when their boast is “Rare Clonmel”
E mail: rareclonmel@eircom.net