The wind and the rain and the hail were high,
In the blackguard year of ’49.
The crops had withered and kids had died
The night we walked to Doolough.
The continent had famine, this is true
But England from us took more too
And they told us we would have no food
Unless we walked to Doolough.
They took our land and took our food
and gleeful, grinning, watched us too
As we starved and died they told us, you
might find food in Doolough.
So fifteen miles on a winter’s night
All for hope our landlord might
Offer food to make it right
We walked. We walked to Doolough.
Men dropped dead or gnawing grass
Starving- pain like broken glass
Guided our footsteps down the path
To Delphi Lodge by Doolough.
And when we got there, numbers thinned,
We found but scorn and hate within
And naught but the road home again
The night we walked to Doolough.
And far away across the sea
Native hearts ached, for we
shared a common enemy
that made us walk to Doolough.
Money gathered, friendship forged
in defiance of English lords
Who took our lands by might of sword,
To remember the night at Doolough.
They called them savages to countervail
The horrors they went through on the Trail.
And did to me the same as well,
The night I died by Doolough.
📸 Photo by Liviu Florescu on Unsplash
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