{"id":1773,"date":"2014-09-02T13:14:36","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T13:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kildare.ie\/ehistory\/?p=1773"},"modified":"2025-10-29T18:14:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T18:14:32","slug":"teresa-brayton-1868-1943","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/teresa-brayton-1868-1943\/","title":{"rendered":"Teresa Brayton 1868-1943"},"content":{"rendered":"

In acknowledgement of the Teresa Brayton Exhibition hosted by Maynooth University for Heritage Week 2014 and the Teresa Brayton Heritage Group and Maynooth Community Library we publish an article by James Flynn from The Capuchin Annual 1961, which outlined the importance of the Kildare poet in literary, cultural and political terms.<\/em><\/p>\n

Teresa Brayton <\/b>1868-1943<\/b><\/p>\n

by <\/b>James Flynn<\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

THE\u00a0 OLD\u00a0 BOG\u00a0 ROAD, written half a century ago, is still a well-known Irish song.\u00a0 Strangely enough its author\u2019s name has not shared the same limelight.\u00a0 Perhaps Teresa Brayton would have preferred it so, for she was a gentle, retiring person; what could better illustrate her humility than the popularity of her song to-day, contrasted with her own modes estimate of her work.\u00a0 Fifty years ago she also wrote:-<\/p>\n

I know that my simple singing will fade from your ears as soon<\/i><\/p>\n

As the song of a wayside robin you heard by the way in June:<\/i><\/p>\n

But the dreams I have dreamed for Ireland, please God, they will never die.<\/i> . . .<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0Over and above her poetry, her outstanding patriotism hives her further claim to be remembered. Both were, indeed, inseparable, nearly all her poetry being inspired by her deep love of her country and her people.<\/p>\n

She wrote hundreds of poems, many of which have been adjudged superior to The Old Bog<\/i> Road.\u00a0 <\/i>But the notable and distinguished thing about her writing is its close adherence to the old bardic traditions. Scarcely any other Anglo-Irish poet has recalled so vividly the old world of Gaeldom; of Gaelic poets who voiced the irrepressible Faith of their people, or struck out battle cries for their armies, or gave to their exiles loneliness the heart-ease of song.\u00a0 Not one, but all of these things she herself has done \u2013 in our own times.\u00a0 Yet in recent years she had suffered a neglect that had almost hidden her name and work from the rising generation.<\/p>\n

This recent neglect, it must be said at once, was due solely to the unavailability of her writings here, and not to any apathy in the people for whom she wrote, not to any demerit in her writing.\u00a0 Indeed poetry closer to the hearts of the people than hers it would be difficult to conceive.\u00a0 It might be the example par excellence<\/i> in modern times of the writing which lives by Irish suffrage, the type described by Professor Daniel Corkery in one of his penetrating works of criticism as the \u201cliterature, which unknown to the outside world, finds shelter and affection in Irish homes.\u201d\u00a0 Of her books published in New York over thirty years ago, the occasional copy which found its way here is, indeed, closely treasured.\u00a0 It was through fortunately seeing one of them recently that Padraig McQuillan of Enfield first came to know her poetry, and resolved that so worthy a writer and so great a patriot should not be without public tribute.\u00a0 Within five months, his plan, warmly supported by the other members of the Enfield Muintir na Tire <\/i>Guild and backed by subscriptions from friends of Teresa Brayton all over the world, came to fruition with the erection of a Celtic Memorial Cross at her grave in Cloncurry cemetery in north Kildare.\u00a0\u00a0 It was unveiled by President Eamon De Valera on 18 October, 1959.\u00a0 In spite of continuous heavy rain, crowds of people from far and near thronged the cemetery for the unveiling ceremony.<\/p>\n

Cloncurry, or Cluain Conaire <\/i>(Contaire\u2019s Meadow) as it was once known, is a quiet townland two miles east of Enfield on the Dublin-Sligo road.\u00a0 There is a well-known landmark there \u2013 an ancient hill-fort, topped by a tree growing in the exact centre of it.\u00a0 This fort stands on one of the most storied fields in Ireland, worthy ground indeed for Teresa Brayton\u2019s last resting place, for history tells us that it was once the meeting place of kings and princes, that there another poet of the Gaels died more than eight hundred years ago, that monks and friars sanctified Cluain Conaire from the days of Saint Patrick.<\/p>\n

Of the other poet who died there historical records, reduced by the pillage of centuries, tell us little.\u00a0 But that he was of high rank is clear from the Annals of<\/i> Clonmacnoise <\/i>which records his death in A.D. 1137, \u201cMoyleisa, called Crossan Fyn O\u2019King, Chief Poet of Ireland in that type of Irish verse called Crossanaght, died at Cloncorrie in Lynster.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The monastery, the ruins of which can still be seen, dates from these medieval times when Carmelites and Augustinians had settlements there.\u00a0 Teresa Brayton is buried close to its south wall, the great doorway which on a long gone day may have opened in welcome to Moylesia, now leading to her grave.<\/p>\n

She was born in the adjoining townland of Kilbrook on 29 June, 1868, the fifth of a family of three boys and three girls.\u00a0 Her father was Hugh Boylan and her mother Elizabeth Downes.\u00a0 Their farmhouse, now gone, was near the roadside, about three hundred yards east of Cloncurry cemetery.\u00a0 Before emigrating, at the age of twenty, to the U.S., she had been assistant-teacher to her sister, Elizabeth, in the local national school at Newtown, and her stirring poems in the Irish national and provincial press had attracted wide attention in these Land League days.\u00a0 She then wrote over the pen-name, T. B. Kilbrook.\u00a0 In Boston, Chicago, and later in New York, she continued to write, and contributed to scores of American papers and journals.<\/p>\n

In New York she met and married Richard Brayton, a French-Canadian, an executive in the Municipal Revenue Department, and their marriage was a happy one.\u00a0 Along with looking after their home, she continued her career as a freelance journalist, writing mostly for The Irish World<\/i>, in which her articles and poems became a regular feature, and also contributing poems to the New York Monitor, Syracuse Sun, Boston<\/i> Pilot, San Franciso Montitor<\/i>, Rosary Magazine<\/i>, and many other publications.\u00a0 Her poetry, vividly expressing the exile\u2019s longing for home, soon won her the affection of every Irish heart, and a place of honour in Irish-American circles in New York.<\/p>\n

She was welcomed into the ranks of The Celtic Fellowship, a society which was composed of people who had been successful in theatrical, musical, artistic and journalistic fields, and included many luminaries of the various professions.\u00a0 Every Saturday night, after the final curtain was rung down on Broadway stages, an \u00a0\u00a0impromptu <\/i>concert was given in The Celtic Fellowship clubrooms in Greenwich village.\u00a0 Teresa Brayton was a frequent contributor to these functions, where her reciting of her latest poems was always regarded as a high-light of the programme.<\/p>\n

During her visits home to Ireland, she became the close friend of the Easter Week leaders, and, back in America, threw all her energies into the Irish Cause, raising funds, distributing pamphlets, and writing her fervent nationalism into poems that were hailed as \u201cthe battle cries of the last struggle of the Gael.\u201d\u00a0 After her husband\u2019s death, she returned to Ireland for good in 1932, and lived for a time with a sister in Bray, and later at Waterloo Avenue, NorthStrand.\u00a0 In 1941, she returned to her old home in Kilbrook, to die there two years later, on 19 August, 1943, in the same room in which she was born.<\/p>\n

Thus ended a life-span of seventy-five years, so rich in good works, and rounded out at last with the exile\u2019s wish of b\u00e1s in n-\u00c9irinn<\/i>. Even its bare outline, inadequately set down, cannot help but reveal some of valorous spirit and lovable nature<\/p>\n

How much more her poems reveal!\u00a0 Even a selection of them show her to be the rich inheritor of great traditions extending back to the golden age of Cluain Conaire, back even to the ancient hill-fort that overlooks her grave.<\/p>\n

The opening lines in her first book of poems give a clue to her sincerity, her whole-heartedness.\u00a0 But they indicate even more.\u00a0 In exile she inscribes her book thus:-<\/p>\n

Unto my own, the Irish, I send with smiles and tears<\/i><\/p>\n

This little book of melodies caught from the flying years;<\/i><\/p>\n

With all the love within me and all the best I know<\/i><\/p>\n

The echo here of Ceitinn\u2019s poem, Beir beannacht leat a sgribhinn, is no accident. The more closely her poems are examined the better one sees that their roots go deep into the Gaelic bardic traditions. Little wonder, then, that, as do the Gaelic poets, she expresses time and again the immemorial forces which have shaped the Gael.<\/p>\n

Of these forces, one of the strongest was nationalism \u2013 normally no shaper of great poetry. Irish nationalism through ages of persecution became a burning inspiration to every Gaelic poet for over a thousand years. In some corners of a sophisticated age, it has become fashionable to speak of it as being no different from any other country\u2019s nationalism; to say that it is being romanticised, over-drawn; but one need only return to Professor Corkery\u2019s clear-sighted analysis of Irish life and literature to find it described as something which normal countries, unused to ages of near-enslavement, can hardly hope to understand \u2013 \u201cone of the deepest things in Irish life, searching into the souls of men, drawing sanction, as it does, from hundreds of battlefields, slaughtering, famines, exoduses, as well as from hundreds of heroic lives and the piety of verse.\u201d So, Corkery. Clearly, then, its expression in Anglo-Irish verse calls for passionate words for vehement speech \u2013 not less vehement, surely, than this typical passage from Teresa Brayton: –<\/p>\n

Irreconcilables!\u00a0 Thank God<\/i><\/p>\n

For freedom\u2019s sacramental wine<\/i><\/p>\n

That make on Aughrim\u2019s reeking sod<\/i><\/p>\n

Our father\u2019s death a draught divine.<\/i><\/p>\n

That set a smile on Tone\u2019s dead lip,<\/i><\/p>\n

Peace on the brows of the young<\/i><\/p>\n

Shears . . . .<\/i><\/p>\n

She has a particular reason for this passionate memory of the 1798 heroes.\u00a0 Did not her own great-grandfather lead the north Kildare men in some of the most gallant, guerrilla fighting of the whole campaign. Ireland\u2019s history, even its pre-history, its mythology, she had made her special study, but what held her most was the dreadful, and near-glorious, chapter of \u201998 \u2013 the long, awaited Irish-French victory foiled by ill-fortune, and turned into rout and destruction \u2013 the honourable surrender terms for the French soldiers \u2013 the poorly equipped Irish abandoned, hacked down in pursuit but turning again to storm the English guns in a last surfeit of courage.\u00a0 Most of all she recalls her own ancestor leading this gallant band of pikesmen south to Prosperous to give battle to Rodin\u2019s yeos \u2013 the same yeos who, a week earlier, had treacherously slain the surrendered insurgents of the Curragh district, leaving \u201cfour hundred murdered bodies on Saint Brigid\u2019s grassy plain.\u201d\u00a0 Their lost battle, their ended lives, weigh heavy on her heart.\u00a0 But their courage is part of her world too, part even of her blood.\u00a0 Small wonder if, four generations later, the steel of their brave, outnumbered pikes still sings in her lines.\u00a0 In her 1916 poem, Ireland Speaks<\/i>, she writes:-<\/p>\n

I am no beggar at your gate<\/i><\/p>\n

No suppliant for your mercy, I;<\/i><\/p>\n

Time looms insistent with my fate,<\/i><\/p>\n

I live or freedom\u2019s self must die.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Down immemorial years I\u2019ve trod;<\/i><\/p>\n

I looked on Time when Time was young,<\/i><\/p>\n

I taught to you the word of God<\/i><\/p>\n

When language halted on your tongue.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Celt is gone and Ireland dead!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

So mocked ye in my hour of need.<\/i><\/p>\n

Victors to-day my children tread<\/i><\/p>\n

Upon the dust of Cromwell\u2019s seed.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Beyond the farthest ocean\u2019s sweep<\/i><\/p>\n

Where once my kith and kin ye hurled,<\/i><\/p>\n

They and their children\u2019s children keep<\/i><\/p>\n

My living rampart round the world.<\/i><\/p>\n

I stand before your loaded guns,<\/i><\/p>\n

Your bayonets press against my breast;<\/i><\/p>\n

Strike if you dare! my soldier sons,<\/i><\/p>\n

And God\u2019s strong hand will do the rest.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

My banner flaunts down every wind,<\/i><\/p>\n

It holds no serf, it knows no crown;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018Tis freedom\u2019s call to all mankind,<\/i><\/p>\n

And who shall dare to drag it down?<\/i><\/p>\n

It is the poetry of the active participant, not of the literati <\/i>who were above the battle.\u00a0 One can see in her the Gaelic file <\/i>reborn again \u2013 an Aodhagan O Rathaille nerving and guiding his people, or a Piaras Feiriter urging on his troops \u2013 using, too, the same methods that they used, the proud declamation of ancestral feats, the calling up of past glories \u2013 a tradition that has its origin in the old sagas where Diarmuid and Oscar and Caoilte prepared for combat by recalling the great battle-deeds of their ancestors.\u00a0 It was in that old tradition that her rousing poem, so important to the result of the 1920 plebiscite, was written:-<\/p>\n

Roll back the portals of silence.\u00a0 Summon her dead men forth<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From Munster and Connacht and Leinster and the proud dark hills of the north!<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Blare to the breezes of morning a reveille, wild and free,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To waken her slumbering Wild Geese wherever their ashes be.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From the restless torrent of every sea where Irish bones bleach white<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Call ye her dead ere a word is said in Ireland\u2019s plebiscite . .<\/i> . .<\/i><\/p>\n

Of the festering famine pits where coffinless bones were flung,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From quicklime\u2019s flame and scaffold\u2019s shame let them speak with ye tongue for tongue,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bearers of battle-axe, pike or gun waging her centuried fight,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bugle them back past star and sun to speak in your plebiscite . . . .<\/i><\/p>\n

In other poems she calls up the great names separately \u2013 Casement \u2013 Parnell \u2013 Sarsfield \u2013 Emmet;\u00a0 and the numbers of people, at home and abroad, she thus rallied to the cause of Irish independence must remain incalculable.\u00a0 Before the eyes of a new generation, the film, Mise \u00c9ire, <\/i>has unfolded some of the splendour of those years, some glimpses of the patriots; and many have recounted as one of the film\u2019s most stirring moments the sight of the people filing past the coffin of O\u2019 Donovan Rossa lying in state, and then the sudden glimpse of his noble chieftain-like countenance.\u00a0 Teresa Brayton had watched that majestic homecoming which was to end with Pearse\u2019s memorable oration, and has spoken words which will doubtless be remembered too:-<\/p>\n

\u2018Twas blue and gold the Hudson ran,<\/p>\n

The harbour tides swung full and free<\/p>\n

When the dead patriot began<\/p>\n

His last, long journey oversea.<\/p>\n

Columbia bared her brows to him.<\/p>\n

The best she breeds gave honour then<\/p>\n

When, out beyond the ocean\u2019s rim,<\/p>\n

Rossa sailed Erinward again.<\/p>\n

The seas were green, the seas were grey,<\/p>\n

The thunderous waves went shouting past,<\/p>\n

Till over night and over day<\/p>\n

His dead heart won to her at last.<\/p>\n

And reverent hands in Dublin town<\/p>\n

Bore that dear dust no tears might stir<\/p>\n

And, with his brothers, laid him down<\/p>\n

In her high place of sepulchre.<\/p>\n

With muffled drum and wailing fife<\/p>\n

And guns at rest they closed the sod<\/p>\n

Where he, who\u2019d lived for Ireland\u2019s life,<\/p>\n

Lay, sealed in silence unto God.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But, as the pregnant seed of spring<\/p>\n

Thrills to a harvest yet to be,<\/p>\n

So Rossa waits the burgeoning<\/p>\n

Of valour unto liberty.<\/p>\n

Not only her poetry, but her whole way of life, her newspaper articles, even her personal letters are instinct with this deep love of country.\u00a0 This is an extract from a letter she wrote to one of her friends, Michael Walsh, some years after the Rising.\u00a0 She was then home on one of her visits from the United States.<\/p>\n

“I was permitted to visit Pearse\u2019s grave in the quicklime pit which was prepared for 150 in 1916.\u00a0 There are fourteen buried there now.\u00a0 The grave is well-kept.\u00a0 I was not permitted to enter Mountjoy, however.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Enclosed is a leaf from Robert Emmet\u2019s vine in Saint Enda\u2019s where I spent a day with Mrs. Pearse.\u00a0 There is a curious story about this vine.\u00a0 It was planted by Robert Emmet originally but the old root from which growth sprang has long been moulded almost to dust, quite dead apparently.\u00a0 Now, from this old rotten wood, leafless for years, a vigorous growth started right after Pearse\u2019s death.\u00a0 After the deaths of Rory O\u2019 Connor and Cathal Brugha in \u201922 another shoot came, the two growing side by side and bearing fruit.\u00a0 This leaf is from that vine.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The block on which Emmet was beheaded is also in Saint Enda\u2019s, the mark of the headman\u2019s axe still showing dark where the blood flowed.\u00a0 The ivy leaf is from Tone\u2019s grave in Bodenstown.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

In the clamour of Broadway, it was on such scenes her mind rested, such mementoes she cherished.\u00a0 Around her neck, on a little chain, she wore a piece of the flagstaff which flew the Irish flag on the G.P.O. on Easter Monday, 1916, – a memento which had been presented to her by the late Countess Markievicz.<\/p>\n

When the battles were over, she wrote of the pride and sorrow of mothers remembering their lost sons:<\/p>\n

\u2018Twas Maura O\u2019Kelly from Galway<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Walked down the hill with me;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Proud was her head for her two sons, dead<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And buried in Killalea . .<\/i> . .<\/p>\n

\u2013 a poem that ends with lines as intense as those of any Gaelic poet:-<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cOh, woman of Galway!<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The toll of death is long.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Said she, \u201cThey died with their heads in pride<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And on their lips a song.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And the lads I\u2019ve buried in Killalea<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 With blood upon hand and face<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Are a bond between their God and me<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That He will redeem the race.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

While the intensity of her patriotic poems marks her out as one of the most Gaelic-minded of the Anglo-Irish poets, it is in her personal poems that the spirit of high poetry is manifest.\u00a0 The heart-break of exile, so much a part of her own life, inspired some of her most poignant writing.\u00a0 Even this more travelled age cannot come to regard that age-old sorrow the parting and grief of deoraidheacht, <\/i>as an exaggerated theme in Gaelic literature.\u00a0 To do so would be to forget how many of those partings had then the finality of death, to forget the anguish of her lines:-\u00a0 \u201cMy mother died last Springtime when Ireland\u2019s fields were green<\/i>.\u201d To show the obverse side of the tragic story \u2013 the mother sorrowing for her exiled children \u2013 she wrote a much greater poem than The Old Bog Road<\/i>. It is the estimate of discerning critics that few poems have probed the race consciousness so deeply.\u00a0 To make it the true heart-cry that it is, she uses the homely accents of the country, \u201cthe echoed music of a Gaelic speech winning back to its own again,\u201d and the heart-cry breaks (as heart cries have ever done) into phrases of Biblical immediacy and beauty.\u00a0 It is, of course, the lament of countless Irish mothers:-<\/p>\n

When the daylight fades from the cabin floor<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And night winds stir in the big ash tree,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018Tis meself sits lonesome beside the door,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Missin\u2019 the childher that\u2019s gone from me.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Matt and Mary and Patsy and Mike,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My three sthrong boys and my girleen dear;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sure, \u2018tis only a few short days belike<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Since I saw them playing around me here.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kind and dacint and aisy to rear,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 The bate of my chidlher was not on earth;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And the only sorrow they made me bear<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Was an empty house and a silent hearth.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But sure with so many to clothe and keep,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And nothin\u2019 behind when rent was due.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I made no moan when they crossed the deep,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But God and His Mother \u2013 They knew, they knew.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My Mary\u2019s a servant in Boston town,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And Mike and Matt are away out West;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 While Patsy, the rover, sthrays up and down,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Wherever the foot of him likes it best.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But never a wan of them fails to write<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 With the monthly money and news go leor;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But, och, \u2018tisn\u2019t money I want to-night,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But my four fine childher about the door.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mary keeps saying, \u201cIn spring, please God,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ll be landin\u2019 back to you safe and sound;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For nowhere is good as the good old sod,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 And no one like you in the four seas round.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sure, I\u2019m cravin\u2019 a whiff of turf fire smoke,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 And a sight of my mother so snug and sweet,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In her white-frilled cap and her big blue cloak,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 That bate all the fashions in Boston Shtreet.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 O, Mary, my girleen, never at all<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do I be spakin\u2019 of pain or ache;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But at night when the corncrakes call and call<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0My heart goes wild for my darlins\u2019 sake.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When shadows lie on the lonesome floor,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And night winds stir in the big ash tree,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then I sit by meself at the open door,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And cry for the childher that\u2019s gone from me.<\/i><\/p>\n

Of her many poems this must have been her favourite, for it was the one she usually chose when asked to recite.\u00a0 How it was received by her fireside audience in Kilbrook or Cloncurry is not difficult to imagine, for the words, handed down orally, are still to be found on the lips of the people there.<\/p>\n

Nothing, however, so surely identifies her with the Gaelic poets of the past as another poem which might have come out of the heart of Gaeldom.\u00a0 That Gaelic civilisation, that deep love of learning; which the most keen-minded analysis has proved to have had \u201cno equal in the world of literature\u201d grew up, as we know, around the bardic schools.\u00a0 When it was rooted up, broken, as good as slain, its poets still remained its faithful custodians, even when reduced to the most extreme poverty, like Raftery, \u201ctapping beggar-like along the stony roads of the West\u201d.\u00a0 In this condition they were the living symbols of their country, impoverished during the blackest night in our nation\u2019s history, but still keeping alive the inner light of Faith and learning.\u00a0 Because of what they did, and because racial memories are long, all poor wayfarers resembling them have still a warm place in the people\u2019s hearts.\u00a0 Across two thousand miles of sea, and in the toils of a foreign city, Teresa Brayton remembered some such figure tapping along the roads of Kilbrook, and to him she gives words that might be those of Raftery himself:-<\/p>\n

I am Owney, the fiddler,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Owney, blind and alone,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The lovin\u2019 of wife and children<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 I never can call my own;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But there isn\u2019t a road in Ireland<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Or a boreen but I\u2019ve trod,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Owney, the poor old fiddler,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who soon will be gone to God.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I walk with never a stumble<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Where many with sight go slow,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For I have a light within me<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 That only \u201cthe dark\u201d can know.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The sun and moon and stars are my friends,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The rain on my face is sweet,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And where is there finer flooring<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Than the grass under Owney\u2019s feet?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n

When I hear the birds in the bushes<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m seein\u2019 them, every one;<\/i><\/p>\n

The wren like a fine soft April day,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The lark like a risin\u2019 sun;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There\u2019s the blackbird, mellow as moonrise,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 The thrush like a wooin\u2019 lover;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But the robin is sweet as rest to my feet<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 When a long, hard day is over.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am Owney, the fiddler,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who never had eyes to see,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But the great high spirits of Erin<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Have whispered my tunes to me;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And whether it was in mornin\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Or duskin\u2019 you heard me play,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019ll think of Owney, the fiddler,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Over half of a world away.<\/i><\/p>\n

Or, perhaps, it is not so much Raftery who lives in these lines, as that other poet of the hungry heart, the great MacCuarta, who listened in some far-off summer to the birds he could never see again, and fashioned for us, out of his blindness, the undying light of a lovely poem. That love of nature, which inspired the best lyrics of the Gaelic poets, is all through her work, in lines that capture the natural beauty beyond them as when a recent poet, strong in the same tradition, writes of \u201cthe undying difference in the corner of a field\u201d, giving words to something we had thought to be beyond words.\u00a0 Could there be a more evocative description of the delicate cloud-textures, peculiar to Irish skies than these words which she gives to some exiled Irishman remembering home?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sometime I shall leave the city<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Where the best in a man soon dies,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And seek for the tender pity<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That broods in my native skies.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2013 or a fresher, more homely, description of the golden promise of spring days than these four lines from another poem?<\/p>\n

When Spring with her dewy fingers<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Sets bowers along the hills,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And a promise of lark-song lingers<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 In the hearts of the daffodils.<\/i><\/p>\n

But these descriptions of nature, lovely as they are, were only the trappings to what she knew her fellow exiles remember most \u2013 the familiar sights and sounds of hearth and field, the welcome of neighbours, all the homely delights which another poet, centuries before, had woven into the imperishable music of Ban Cnuic Eireann Oigh. <\/i>Their constant preoccupation with the memories of home she expresses in lines that tell their longing:-<\/p>\n

For the old thatched home of my father,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 the turf fires warm and bright,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The pleasant song and the story where<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 neighbours dropped in at night,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The wild bogs purple with heather, the<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ring of the cross-roads\u2019 set<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For dancing on summer evenings to tunes<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 that I can\u2019t forget.<\/i><\/p>\n

How eagerly her readers must have scanned the pages of The Irish World<\/i> and the other Irish-American papers for lines like these, which were as a fresh breath of home.\u00a0 As if to satisfy their need, she worked unsparingly, going so far as to make poems for the exiled of almost every county and town in Ireland, and often working late into the night when her own day\u2019s work was done.<\/p>\n

For what is the city\u2019s luring,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 The calling of street and mart,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When a wind from the hills of Wicklow<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Is blowing across your heart<\/i>!<\/p>\n

are the lines she gives to a Wicklow man, Hilaire Belloc, yearning for the downs of Sussex, has hardly sounded a sweeter chord than:-<\/p>\n

And so from the weary toiling<\/i><\/p>\n

Of many an ill-starred road<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I will go where the hills of Wicklow<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Are blowing their peace abroad,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For over the seas I\u2019m seeing<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 A sugawn chair by the fire<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At home in my father\u2019s country,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 The land of my heart\u2019s desire<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It is not surprising that when she finally decided to come home for good in 1931, her exiles were strangely perplexed; their grief at losing her, struggling with their joy that her own exile was ended.\u00a0 A fund organised for a farewell party to her was over-subscribed almost as soon as it was opened, and so grateful and affectionate were the letters that poured in, that the organisers decided to bind them into a testimonial book, which they presented to her.\u00a0 It was her proudest moment.\u00a0 This tribute of her people\u2019s love for her expressed in the letters quite overwhelmed her.\u00a0 She prized the book over all her possessions.\u00a0 It is now treasured by her relatives in Kilcock, and makes moving reading; the letters came from celebrities like John Count MacCormack, from priests, doctors, teachers, newspaper editors, and from the humblest workers of field and factory and building-site.\u00a0 Seldom can a writer have had such an overwhelming proof of her place in the hearts of all.\u00a0 This extract from one of the letters (that of Thomas J. Ford, editor of The Irish World<\/i>) may be taken as typical of the many tributes;- \u201cHer poetry has gone around the world.\u00a0 It has served to hearten, uplift and inspire countless thousands of the scattered children of the Gael.\u201d<\/p>\n

All this long-deserved praise she received with humility.\u00a0 Indeed, her new-found fame was something she never got quite used to, and it is remembered that, on the day of her return home, she was greatly surprised when, on turning on the radio, she heard Seamus O\u2019Doherty singing one of her own songs.<\/p>\n

Her days of retirement were spent quietly.\u00a0 But on one occasion, while living in Clontarf, and then almost seventy years old, she was prevailed upon to recite some of her rousing poems at an Easter Week Commemoration concert.\u00a0 She received a tremendous ovation.\u00a0 This is a description of her given then:- \u201cShe was small, dressed in black, and her hair was snow-white.\u00a0 Reserved in manner, she would talk on anything but herself and her career.\u00a0 Her eyes were large and showed a sparkling intelligence; her mouth was firm but humorous.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of her close friends, William Walsh of the Ben of Fore, County Westmeath, has also recorded his impressions of her:- \u201cI found Teresa Brayton shy and reserved\u00a0 when in a crowded room.\u00a0 She was at home only with those who shared her interests, but if one were interested in poetry or the arts she asked no more.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had a richly-stored mind and was \u2018never less alone than when alone\u2019.\u00a0 She had a wonderful memory for poetry, and could recite countless poems by heart in her rich, resonant voice; and many a winter\u2019s night I sat enthralled listening to her at her cosy fireside in her little flat in Dublin.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a visit to her later in Kilbrook, in the Autumn of 1941, he took what must be one of the last photographs of her, as she stood outside her rose-covered house.\u00a0 \u201cShe loved flowers,\u201d he writes, \u201cand her home in Kilbrook was a bower of roses in Summer\u201d.\u00a0 Though now in failing health, she still bravely displayed her usual cheerfulness and good humour, and he remembers his last sight of her, \u201cher bobbed, silver hair framing a calm face, the most striking features of which were her bright, alert, blue eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

That quality of humour, as true a touchstone of Gaelic poetry as any, finds its way into her writings too (as it did into Eoghan Ruadh\u2019s and all the others, even in their darkest days).\u00a0 She describes, for instance, an everyday happening in the country \u2013 the villagers, gathered together in the evening, discussing the news of the day.\u00a0 These are the opening verses of the ballad:<\/p>\n

By the crossroads of Knockallen where the bog and upland meet,<\/i><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a tidy row of houses that the neighbours call \u201cthe street\u201d;<\/i><\/p>\n

It is free and independent, though it pays its tax to George,<\/i><\/p>\n

For it runs its own Home Parliament in Jerry Connor\u2019s forge<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the quiet dusk of evening, when the iron hammer rings,<\/i><\/p>\n

That mighty song of labour that has raised and routed kings,<\/i><\/p>\n

The members take their places, with their backs against the wall,<\/i><\/p>\n

And who but Jerry Connors should be leader of them all.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

For the tangles of Westminster there\u2019s little patience there,<\/i><\/p>\n

Where state affairs are settled in the shoeing of a mare;<\/i><\/p>\n

And bills that Whig and Tory view with sinking of the heart<\/i><\/p>\n

Are fixed while Jerry rims the wheel of Kelly\u2019s donkey cart.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018Tis there the Kaiser\u2019s law is scorned, the Czar is roundly cursed,<\/i><\/p>\n

And every ruling head declared no better than the worst,<\/i><\/p>\n

When the world around, from China to the Rockies\u2019 farthest gorge,<\/i><\/p>\n

Is tried before the Parliament in Jerry Connor\u2019s forge.<\/i><\/p>\n

Many of her ballads and poems in the same happy strain became favourite recitation pieces in the New York of her day, this lighter side of her work providing as richly humorous a commentary on Irish life as Around the Boree<\/i> Log <\/i>did on the life of the Australian out-back.<\/p>\n

In all the work of her many-sided genius, in poems of humour, sorrow, patriotism, exile, the emotional contents always right, and always full square in the Gaelic tradition.\u00a0 With this, one feels, she would have been content.\u00a0 It was all she set out to do.\u00a0 But even in the criticism of a new age which tends to put form before content, her work can stand up well before the higher-criticism of the perfectionists, its form at times matching that of the best writers.\u00a0 Of form in Anglo-Irish poetry (or in that part of Anglo-Irish poetry, which lives by Irish suffrage \u2013 which is the part that matters) the master moulds have long been acknowledged to be those of Padraic Colum, who performed the unique linguistic marvel (to which some worthy critical pen may yet do justice) of bending and shaping a foreign language to his purpose until the words breathed through them the very soul and spirit of the Gaelic world; breathed them as naturally and easily as if it were not English words he used at all, but Gaelic.\u00a0\u00a0 He has related how one of his poems was inspired by his hearing an old Roscommon man, in describing the depopulation wrought by the famine, suddenly and unconsciously throw out a phrase as rhythmic as a piece of poetry:- \u201cI might have stood in Connacht, on the top of Cruckmaelinn,\u00a0 And all around me I would see the hundreds of my kin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of Teresa Brayton\u2019s poems are as close-linked as that to the rhythmic speech of the people.\u00a0 To take an example: in one poem a poor woman tells of her once idyllic life in Glenashee (the poem\u2019s title), her happiness there with husband and family until some tragedy struck, leaving her no life to lead but that of a poor woman of the roads.\u00a0 And the lines, like those of the Roscommon man, might have been taken down from the speaker\u2019s lips, so true do they ring:-<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s the use of talkin\u2019 now; they\u2019re gone beyond my call,<\/i><\/p>\n

My fine, strong man, my childher three, my house and cow and all,<\/i><\/p>\n

I\u2019m but a wanderin\u2019 woman now and what you give to me<\/i><\/p>\n

Is like the many a bite and sup I gave in Glenashee<\/i>.<\/i><\/p>\n

It was not an inexpert poet who could recognise this everyday speech for the poetic coin that it is.\u00a0 But form, as has been said, was not her main concern; her largeness of heart gave her to know that content must always come first.<\/p>\n

The deep love of humanity, so much a part of her nature, is seen most clearly in a poem so personal to her that one could not imagine its being written by anyone else.\u00a0 There is a two-fold commiseration involved \u2013 the heart of a priest going out to the poorest of his flock, and her heart I turn going out to him for is kind action.\u00a0 This is her own account of the subject matter;-<\/p>\n

One of the noblest monuments to humanity, in my humble opinion, is the Celtic Cross which Father Tim Dempsey of Saint Louis has placed in Calvary Cemetery, there on the plot which he purchased for the friendless poor who so may rest peacefully untroubled by the earth of a \u201cPotter\u2019s Field.\u201d\u00a0 Forty-seven wandering sons of the Gael are sleeping there to-day.<\/i><\/p>\n

Father Tim died on April 6th, 1936, and all America mourned his passing.\u00a0 Even death did not separate him from his poor people, for he was laid to rest in the plot which he purchased for the poor \u2013 \u201cThe Exiles\u2019 Rest.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Here is the poem she was then moved to write:-<\/p>\n

From roads that were dark and dreary,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From ways that were walked in vain,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From toils that had long grown weary,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0From scourgings of sun and rain;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 From the lonesome path of the friendless<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That leadth to no man\u2019s breast,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They have found the peace that is endless<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Asleep in the \u201cExiles\u2019 Rest.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who knows of the wistful yearnings,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They carried through street and mart,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The dreams that their cheerless mornings<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hid in the dark of their heart?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who knows of their soul\u2019s high hoping<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To stand and shine with the best?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Alas, for their fruitless groping,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They lie in the \u201cExiles\u2019 Rest.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who knows of the inward vision<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The pictures mystic and sweet<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That blessed them from lands Elysian<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 And healed the fret of their feet?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who knows how across the billows<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wind-scattered and all astir<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The old sod haunted their pillows<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And they lived in their dreams with her?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So the God of their ceaseless praying,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The God whom they ne\u2019er denied,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Made out of their deaths a Maying<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 With an Irish soggarth beside.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nor altar, nor fane, nor steeple<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 He raised at his Lord\u2019s behest,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But he gave a grave to his people<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 And called it the \u201cExiles\u2019 Rest.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He gave them their crown of living,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 The guerdon they craved for most-<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 An Irish priest for their shriving<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 And peace at the utmost post.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A grave where the public finger<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Of charity writes no crest,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But ever the angels linger<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To hallow the \u201cExiles\u2019 Rest.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And so with the stars for keepers<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 The dawns and the midnights go,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018Tis little the worn-out sleepers<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Are caring who rest below.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And though the road through the shadows<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Still leads to an empty quest,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Cross of their country hallows<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Their sleep in the \u201cExiles\u2019 Rest.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 God bless you, O Irish soggarth<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0God keep you in shine and gloom<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For sake of the homeless Saviour<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Who lay in a stranger\u2019s tomb.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For your love like his outreaching<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Draws the friendless home to your breast,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And you gave them for noblest preaching<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 His peace in your \u201cExiles\u2019 Rest.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Who can doubt that the writer of these lines possessed that greatness of heart which Goethe has set down to be the clearest mark of the true poet?<\/p>\n

It is the quality that distinguishes all her writing, giving her kinship with the old Gaelic poets, whose amhrans<\/i>, born of the heart and spirit, found their way into the people\u2019s hearts, and still live on their lips wherever Gaelicism survives.\u00a0 Despite her having to use an alien language, she can be seen to be one in the same tradition, following closely in their footsteps, aware of their role, and hers, in handing on the old traditions, as these lines from one of her early poems reveal:-<\/p>\n

Oh, Isle of mine, where the ancient glories<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Of ages linger by hill and dell,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The harper\u2019s song and the Druid stores,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 The old traditions that poets tell<\/i>!<\/p>\n

How faithfully she sought to preserve the old traditions is now part of our history.\u00a0 In her writing, she is the great-hearted interpreter of the forces in her people\u2019s lives, their nationalism, their humour, their exiles\u2019 love of home. Of the other strong force in Irish life \u2013 the religious consciousness of the people \u2013 we can say that it informs and lights all her work.<\/p>\n

Christmas Verses<\/i>, a booklet of seven of her religious poems, has the quality of naturalness that comes through in all religious poetry of writers whose religion is part of their country\u2019s everyday life.<\/p>\n

A Christmas Fancy <\/i>tells in homely words the meaning of the Irish traditional custom of setting the Christmas candle at the window of the house:-<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She set her holy candle inside the window pane,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The happy time of Christmas has come to earth again;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She said, \u201cO Mary mother, and Joseph good and true,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And little Child of Bethlehem, there\u2019s welcome here for You.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m poor and old and lonely, but peace is on my floor,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And there is always greeting for travellers at my door;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And glad would be my sharing of bite and sup with Them<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Who\u2019d seek the room in Erin denied at Bethlehem.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI have two sheets of linen, sun-dried and beautiful,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have two fleecy blankets of snowy Irish wool,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A knitted quilt with fringes to lay upon the bed,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And a little downy pillow to fit a Baby head.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cI have two cups of china with saucers that are mates,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A jug with roses on it, and two blue china plates,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019d take these from my dresser for Lady Mary\u2019s sake,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To serve with milk and apples and floury raisin cake.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019d tend the Maiden Mother with eager hands of joy<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And ask no finder pleasure that gazing at her Boy;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then, when my Guests were slumbering I\u2019d say my Rosary,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nor pray to enter Heaven for Heaven had come to me.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

In this verse from A Christmas Song <\/i>how pithily the tragedy of the proud would is mourned:-<\/p>\n

The world, grown weary of wasting strife,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Had called on the Christ to rise,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For sin had poisoned the springs of life,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And only the dead were wise;<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But, wrapped in a dream of scornful pride,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Too high were its eyes to see<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A Child, foredoomed to be crucified,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On a peasant Mother\u2019s knee.<\/i><\/p>\n

Christmas Verses<\/i>, published in 1934 at The Sign of the Three Candles, Dublin, was the only book of her poems published in Ireland until the Souvenir<\/i> booklet to commemorate the unveiling of her monument last year.\u00a0 In New York the first selection of her poems was published in 1913 by P. J. Kenedy and Son under the title Songs of Dawn<\/i>.\u00a0 In 1926, The Irish Book Shop, Lexington Avenue, brought out another book of her work, The Flame<\/i> of Ireland<\/i>.\u00a0 Very many later poems of hers appeared in newspapers and periodicals here and in the United States.\u00a0 They have yet to be collected into a new volume of her works.<\/p>\n

We who are fortunate enough to have the literary canons proposed by Professor Corkery may assess her place in Anglo-Irish literature or compare her best poems with the poems of Colum, and we heartily concur with the view of the late Aodh de Blacam, who pleaded that all such writing which preserved the soul of Gaelicism was the means, powerful above all others, towards Gaelicisation, its medium of English being, he held, all to the good, in the years of transition.\u00a0 Perhaps we may yet see the realisation of his hopes that the selected works of William Byrne, Patrick Kelly, Teresa Brayton and other poets, who expressed the true soul of Ireland\u2019s Catholic people, will be published in inexpensive editions easily acquired by our people.<\/p>\n

In believing that there was a demand as well as a purpose for the work of these writers, it would seem that he had too true a sense of literature and history to be very much wrong.\u00a0 One thousand copies of the Teresa Brayton Souvenir<\/i> booklet (containing some of her poems) sold out within a few days, and a second thousand copies sold out as quickly.\u00a0 He would, doubtless, have regarded as further proof of the faces, avid with interest, of all the people who braved the downpours on that October day to witness the unveiling ceremony in Cloncurry graveyard and their applause for the Very Reverend Doctor Corkery when he said in his graveside address:-<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people in their ivory towers and synthetic garrets might decry our presence here and the verse of the poet, but she spoke in the language she knew, expressing the heart-break of the exile and the yearning for freedom.\u00a0 Some of the beatniks might think us foolish, but those who would advance Ireland furthest must base our future on the traditions of the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe honour Teresa Brayton, too, as a woman, for it was the mothers and grandmothers of Ireland who kept the traditions of the country alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope that this occasion is symbolic not only of our pride in the past, but also of our determination to make the future worthy of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many elegies and personal laments came from Teresa Brayton\u2019s pen, and, for the people leaving Cloncurry cemetery, these lines which she wrote on the death of another patriot Irish-woman, Elizabeth Somers, must surely come nearest to what they carried in their hearts:-<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Soon will the spring with tender breath<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Woo verdure from your covering sod<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 While you, triumphant over death,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Go singing up the slopes of God.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But Irish lips will speak your name,<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And Irish hearts hold as their own<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The one whose life burned as a flame<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Upon her country\u2019s altar stone.<\/i><\/p>\n

A wise American critic had said, over forty years ago, that the songs of Teresa Brayton, like Beranger\u2019s of France, will live when more ambitious efforts are laid in dust on the shelf.\u00a0 But the intuition of that graveside throng was not, of course, to make comparisons with Beranger or Burns, nor to pay tribute to a mere writer of English verse, but to honour the most lately deaf of the poets of their own Gaelic tradition, one in spirit with Seamus Mac Cuarta who sleeps in the plains of Louth, or Aodhagan O Rathaille far south in Muckross, or that other poet from the Golden Age, who, for all we now know, may have been laid to rest within sight of her own grave.<\/p>\n

Note: There are a number of photographs illustrating this article as it appears in its original form, including one of Teresa Brayton soon after her return to Ireland. (Mary Mahon)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In acknowledgement of the Teresa Brayton Exhibition hosted by Maynooth University for Heritage Week 2014 and the Teresa Brayton Heritage Group and Maynooth Community Library we publish an article by James Flynn from The Capuchin Annual 1961, which outlined the importance of the Kildare poet in literary, cultural and political terms. Teresa Brayton 1868-1943 by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people","category-social-history"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kildare Local Studies","author_link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/author\/localstudies\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1773"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8155,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773\/revisions\/8155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}