History Lesson��

foreword…On the morning of December 10, 2014, when the people of Ireland are poised to express their very vocal disgust and protest at the introduction of water charges but, even more importantly, their outrage at this Government’s mismanagement and complete disdain and disregard for the democratic will of the people, I publish this poem, History Lesson, inspired by a conversation with my father, Martin Hayes, who was born in 1922, the year of the birth of this nation.

Martin Hayes

History Lesson��

by Dermott Hayes��

Born at the birth of a nation

in poverty and hope

a new dawn with brooding clouds

broken families

rent by spilled blood and hate

The manifesto of their origins

written in their history

but hidden in their childhood

but that is written by the victors

what did they win?

and who won?

Early memories

on a country road

a man spilling blood

cycling the lanes

a gun hanging from his crippled shoulder

and fireside stories told

of women hiding bombs in kettles

to fool the ���Tans

and her man who vowed

to die with a hot gun

in his hands

their son

who walked those same country lanes

would later visit their graves

their final resting place

under the shade of an ancient oak

in a government car

and their history forgotten,

manipulated, distorted,

revised and rewritten

while our son of the nation

took his education

but learned his history at home

in fireside tales

of perfidious foes

and fearless heroes

then when the other side

stepped to the plate

to take their part

in building the state

in their own shape

they went to war

an economic war

a flea biting a sick, old dog

and a farmer couldn���t sell a cow

but slaughtered them and their calves

and sold their hides

while their families fled

or starved for pride

Then the dog awoke

Not for fear of a flea

but anger at a pup

it had once subdued

should become a snarling beast

It was time for many sons of this nation

to seek their fortunes, again

in the bloody fields of conflict

for what were their choices

no work, no wealth

no history, little purpose

By chance

our son was presented with a choice

to fight and die on foreign soil

or live and work

to serve the nation

his motherland

then public service

was an honourable duty

with little pay and few rewards

but with a classic education

well versed in Greek and Latin

and a memory packed with rhyme

of Wordsworth, Goldsmith, Milton

and the glorious bard

he sustained the lonely vigils

on a border of two nations

his own history told him

should be one

for what he knew of his nation���s birth

was nurtured in the warm heat of the fireside

a story of a history stolen and divided

but by who and why

was never clear

until once he stepped inside the GPO

a grown, young man

to walk in the footsteps of those who died

to give their nation

its first breath of life

and he read their words

addressed to Irishmen and Irishwomen

and spoke of cherishing all the children

It caused him to pause and think

of who had won what and to what end?

We stood together

when the ribbon was cut

to open a link between north and south

the new Lifford bridge

replaced the old stone crossing

battered, worn and dangerous

by the fast flowing waters

of Finn and Mourne,

a bridge built in co-operation

by the Councils on either side,

on that day,

beside Neil Blaney and Captain O���Neill,

we stood and I wondered

where were the cloven hooves

and Lambeg drums?

but their beat could always be heard

lest we forget

on the ���free State��� side of the border

On visits to Strabane or Derry

Neighbouring towns of another state

That would soon explode

As a suppressed minority

Sought to loosen the shackles

In a world awakening to

Civil rights, teetering on revolution

While at home

The men in shiny, mohair suits

Looked slick, smart and sleek

So that, dazzled by their brilliance,

We failed to see their sleveen deviance

While they stripped

Fat and lean

Off country, city, town

To line their pockets

And reward their skill

To pull a three card trick

And make us all

Their grateful fools

join us then

new Europeans

and another fat teat

for this wailing, needy child

to suck on

while Northern Ireland and its troubles

become the prism and kaleidoscope

through which our deeds are seen

and what begins as defence

becomes a relentless tit for tat war

where no ground is gained

nor battles fought

but still the bodies mounted

in a war that blurred the lines

between criminal and crime

on either side

and drew the gangster and the deviant

to fight alongside self confessed

and, by their own estimation,

misunderstood patriots,

who like the heroes in the lore

were the ones who died

for a cause they no long understood

because they couldn���t find an answer

and so they fought and fought and fought

until, far from knowing the purpose of their actions,

they didn���t understand the question

and the south adopted a policy

of implausible deniability

pretending if it can���t be seen

then it doesn���t exist

a ploy that���s never worked with children

Albert, for all his faults

called time and Enough

It���s time to grow up

But a nation grows with its people

And writes its own history

By deed, thought and act

So while a country’s colonised

By rule of law

That country’s irrepressible impulse

To express itself

Turns colonist of word and language

First Swift, then Goldsmith,

Then Wilde and Yeats

Before the torrent of a borrowed language

From a downcast race

Breathes new life into a suffocating space

Joyce, Beckett and Shaw

And from their lead

New voices roar

Clarke, McNiece

Stephens and Gogarty, too

And from the working classes

Voices that were ignored

Locked out

In the rush for the gold

Of nationalist lore

O’Casey and Behan

Inspired by Connolly and Larkin’s struggles

And still, within our time, most recent

Stand Flann O’Brien, William Trevor,

McGahern and Seamus Heaney

Or Roddy Doyle, Sebastian Barry

Van Morrison, U2 and Sinead O���Connor

Christy Moore and Christie Hennessy

The Dubliners and The Fureys

The Wolfe Tones and The Clancy Brothers

The Pogues, Thin Lizzy and The Stars of Heaven

Boyzone, Westlife and One Direction

Names are just a few

All hail a diversity, uncontainable

Within the confines of a history

Written by reactionary revisionists

Or shackled by the empire of thought and action

the Holy Roman Mother Church

this is a world of the fast moving message

Media that once were in the confines

of science fiction

in a thrice became commonplace

and a global concert of musicians

led by an Irishman

wakened a world to its own deprivations

Filmmakers from Raoul Walsh to Ford,

Sheridan and Jordan,

Stars shining bright in the celluloid firmament

from Cagney, Pat O���Brien, Maureen O���Hara

and others to the present day of Farrell, Gillen

and Saoirse Ronan

How could we not change and changing,

change the world we live in?

though while we changed

the world we lived in

was far beyond the pale

pallor of the land we lived in

for what happens when the leaders die

the visionaries who could see the light

of a land of equals

free and proud,

Carrion���s pecking order

comes forth to stake their claim

and rip the throat

to quell the voice within,

steal the eyes

so they can���t see

the howling jackals feeding

on the carcass of the hero

while their greatest crime

becomes their greatest failing

the immolation of imagination

they climbed in a mirror

and became their own oppressor

Sought, like a wounded cur,

the comfort of an angry voice,

a swinging cudgel,

To kowtow to bankers and bondholders

and bury their own

under a pile of seething debt,

while pawning the family jewels

and natural resources

like oil, gas and water

for a derisible pittance,

they build a spire

like a spike

a monument to their delusion

a chimera of misapprehension

while the forgotten children

abused, discarded, disavowed

redundant and downsized

the surplus to their needs

lie dead in the streets

that are paved with those spikes

the symbol their own

sickening fantasy

And now,

within a decade of the centennial

of his own birth

and the birth of that nation he had served

he wonders again

as tax is piled upon tax

whose history was it for

that it should be sold and washed away

relinquished like some redundant lease

a mortgage in default

a payment short of foreclosure,

before the freedom it promised

could be cherished

by its sons and daughters?��