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Love Was True to Me

from So Ends This Day by éilís kennedy

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about

Source:
James Jeffrey Roche’s comprehensive book “ Life of John Boyle O Reilly “

My brother Mícheál gave me this book which he had since his days as a diplomat in New York. It is a wonderful read and astonishingly runs to some 800 pages of prose ,poems and speeches .
After John Boyle O ‘Reilly’ s death this poem was among many of his papers and had been unpublished . Some were unfinished and I have amended the first verse slightly to fit in with the metre of the song .

In March 1869 , John Boyle O’ Reilly escaped on a whaler called the Gazelle from The Establishment - the grim Fremantle penal colony where he had been imprisoned with his fellow Fenians. The first man to greet him as the rope ladder descended to haul him up was that of a new Bedford man called Henry Hathaway, the third mate of the Gazelle. They were to become firm friends . Hathaway would ,a few years later , be instrumental in the plan and rescue of six Fenians left behind in Fremantle in one of the most daring prison escapes in history.

lyrics

Love was True to Me
John Boyle O’Reilly
Music : Éilís Kennedy

Love was true to me,
True and tender
I who ought to be
Love’s defender
Let the cold winds blow
Till they chilled him
‘Shroud him – and I know
That I killed him.

Years he cried to me
To be kinder;
I was blind to see
And grew blinder.
Years with soft hands raised
Fondly reaching,
Wept and prayed and praised,
Still beseeching

When he died, I woke,
God ! how lonely,
When the grey dawn broke
On one only.
Now beside love’s grave
I am kneeling;
All he sought and gave
I am feeling

credits

from So Ends This Day, released June 18, 2020
Lyrics adapted from John Boyle O Reilly poem
Music : Eilis kennedy
Intro Music : Gerry O Beirne
Performed by Eilis kennedy
Gerry O ‘Beirne: Steel string and Spanish guitar Eamon Mc Elholm :Harmonium Laura Kerr : Fiddle

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éilís kennedy image

éilís kennedy Dingle, Ireland

Singing , writing , composing ,learning, teaching.
,Amhráin , Béarla & Gaelainn from the South-West of Ireland.

New Album 'So Ends this day' out now

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