Born From The Blood Of The Gael Poem by Daniel McDonagh

I learned my history of Ireland
From my father every Friday night,
When he would arrive home from Madigan’s bar
Reciting in song and verse of Ireland’s fight.

He talked of Robert Emmett
And sang of the brave Wolfe Tone,
He spoke with pride of Padraig Pearse
Of James Connolly, he would recite a poem.

It was not the Guinness that fuelled his passion,
For his heritage, he would never part.
And he told me, that I, a son of the Diaspora
Was an Irish bhoy at heart.

He said that Brother Walfrid should be canonized a saint
For his vision and his dream.
For he brought faith and pride to the Glasgow Irish
With men proudly wearing the emerald green.

A second-class citizen is how he had felt all his life
For being a Catholic of Irish descent.
And it burned his soul, the discrimination and bigotry,
That had encountered his up bringing in a Glasgow tenement.

He spoke of the shipyards; he had worked down by the Clyde,
Harassed for his faith, labeled a papist and Fenian.
His solace he found, in Our Lord and the Virgin Mary,
How he sometimes wished, he had the strength of Cúchulainn.

Our heritage and culture, he said, shall last forever
For we are born from the blood of the Gael,
And the next time that you walk into Parkhead,
Those rebel songs of old, sing, shout and yell.



Daniel McDonagh June’2008