Has Ireland taken it's place amongst the Nations of the Earth?
The Celtic Tiger has roared, an Irishman was boss of the European Parliament,
a new Gaeltacht exists in Canada, Brian bailed out the banks with billions,
Riverdance and the Irish Tenors have been seen and heard by millions all over
the world and Anthony Kearns has sung Boolavogue in Boolavogue.
The relatives of Robert Emmet must be resting easily in their Tipperary Town
Grave, perhaps now, at last, his Epitaph will be written. Perhaps he himself
might say there is one more thing he would want?
In 1798 they never could have imagined that a day would come when the
Church at Boolavogue would be built again and that Bishop Brennan and Fr.
Byrne would walk about without fear of the rack or the hangman's noose.
It is ironic that both these men are Kilteely natives.
The Story of Boolavogue is known to every Irishman 'in every kingdom where
breezes blow'. The people were suffering in 1798. Irish people should not
be Catholics, be educated, own a horse or speak the Irish Language. They
had very little food or money as all they earned was needed to pay rent on
their own lands which had been confiscated from them, grain leaving the
country while the people starved. Only fifty years later the potato crops
failed in 1846, the year of the great famine when so many died, some
found with grass in their mouths.
In 1798 the people wanted to rebel but they had no leader, no weapons,
no food. The parish priest of Boolavogue surprised them all. People should
not have to worship hiding in forests, kneeling on cold wet ground. Jumping
up upon the Rock, "Arm, Arm", he cried "for I have come to lead you, for
Ireland's freedom, lets fight or Die". He put together his little poor army
with help from other leaders, his curates Fr. John Murphy and Fr. Moogue
Kearns. The first cousin of Fr. Kearns, John Kelly, famed in the song
"Kelly, the Boy from Killane' and some other leaders.
Their weapons... home made pikes, shovels and scythes. Some had just sticks
they pulled from the ditches. For food, those lucky enough to own a top coat,
carried fistfuls of Barley seeds in their pockets. He led them on against the
coming soldiers and 'the cowardly yeomen' they put to flight'. They took
Enniscorthy by stampeding a herd of cattle through the town.
Success followed success until they were defeated at the bottom
of Vinegar hill.
Today above the alter in the Church built to replace Fr. Murphy's original
church which was burned down, a huge life size cross depicts the
outstretched arms of Christ who dies for all of us.
In 1798 Fr. Murphy, too, had his limbs stretched, tortured on the rack, a
fire lit under him. He was then taken from the rack, hung, drawn
and quartered.
Fr. John Murphy was killed and Fr. Moogue Kearns was hung in Longford.
This must have seemed to him a million miles away from his native
Kilteely, considering the mode of transport in those days.
Today, his direct descendant, the last person born in his home,
Anthony Kearns, has sung in churches in almost every city in the
USA and thinks nothing of the distance.
To introduce Boolavogue at the concert, Anthony said that "once,
somewhere in California, there must have been twenty thousand people
in the audience when he heard somebody shout 'Up Kilteely' so he had
no option but to sing the following song which is rather difficult to sing".
When the time was ready, 'a rebel hand set the heather blazing and
called the neighbors from far and near".
The song recalls the early success when Fr. Murphy's men 'spread o'er
the land, like a might wave'. Fr. Murphy had told his people to fight or die,
that none should be found dead from a wound in the back. When they found
they were defeated, two thousand five hundred men, women and children
stood back to back and were slaughtered in that one day at Vinegar hill.
Not for them a shroud or coffin, all lay in a Mass Grave. In August barley
grew from the seeds they had in their pockets.
It was a great experience for me to drive through the Harrow,
mentioned in the song where the boys of Wexford showed well armed
regiments how men could fight. Of course, the Church erupted with
applause when the song was finished.
The concert was a fundraiser to repair the Church but I believe all present
would agree that Bishop Brennan and Fr. Byrne took a great chance in
having one of the World's greatest tenors sing there. They are lucky
that the force and incredible power of his voice did not send their roof half way to Mars.
When I arrived for the concert Fr. Byrne, much to my surprise, brought me
personally to the front seat which was reserved. Close by was the woman
responsible for Anthony's great physical strength, his mother Betty,
who must be an incredible cook.
Unlike another European tenor we will not name as we must leave the
dead alone, from my vantage point in the front row, I noted that not even
one tiny bead of perspiration appeared on Anthony's brow, no matter
how hard the song was or how high the notes.
Seated next to his mother was his God mother. What an easy job that
woman had. Young Fr. Byrne is such a credit to Kilteely, but so is Anthony.
When other young men are in pubs or at parties, Anthony is on stage
somewhere in the world with the Irish Tenors or doing fund raising in
Solo concerts in any city in the United States. It would be difficult to
name a city where he has not sung. At other times he may be learning
the words of some new song in any of the seven languages he can sing in.
Bishop Brennan stated how proud he was of him.
At the concert we were treated to a feast of wonderful songs such as
'The Snowy Breasted Pearl', sung with incredible emotion, 'None but the
Lonely Heart', 'Molly Bawn', and of course 'Ave Maria' which was
sung before 'Boolavogue'.
Paddy treated us to some hilarious stories about Winston Churchill
and Lady Astor who despised each other. "Mr. Churchill, if I were
married to you, I would feed you poison", to which Mr. Churchill
replied, "Lady Astor, if I were married to you, I would take it". The
clergy present were howling at Paddy's tales about Church notices
that were worded incorrectly.
Paddy apologized for the glasses he was wearing. The day before
the concert, he broke his reading glasses and had great difficulty
finding the correct strength in the stores in Dublin, so he had to
purchase the only one he could find which, he said, made him feel
like Elton John.
Bishop Brennan said he thought Paddy's new glasses were funky. Paddy,
of course, was a huge star of Irish Radio, a household name as I was
growing up. He is incredibly talented and a known expert on Gilbert and Sullivan.
He met Anthony first when he taught at the Leicester School of Music. He
sometimes lectures here in the USA, too. He too, has a fine voice and we
were treated to a lovely lullaby, The Castle of Dromore.
Perhaps if 'the winter winds were piercing cold around the Castle of
Dromore', the American visitors to Boolavogue were blessed with
two weeks of beautiful sunshine. I met Sharon O'Neill for the first
time when she was seated behind me from Atlanta to Dublin.
Undaunted by her bad cold, she, like all the rest of us, would not dare
to miss this most historic concert in the life of this young tenor. I was
so glad the sun was shining for her and all the other fans who had
traveled so far, even from Las Vegas where there is no shortage of
great artists, but sure who can compare with our two Taisces,
Anthony and Paddy.
After the concert Fr. Byrne invited us to a tea party at the Parochial House.
Anthony and Paddy joined us. Anthony searched for his favorite type bun
for Paddy which might have been his breakfast as he had a very early
morning flight to join a cruise ship where some lucky people would be
entertained by Maestro Healy. One can only imagine his dilemma when
his glasses broke with such little time to find new ones.
After the concert I stayed with my brother Willie and his wife Judy Hendrix
Townsend in Ballon. Only a half mile down the road from their house legend
has it that Fr. John Murphy spent his last night of freedom in a house owned
by a protestant family who supported him.
Judy is named and has a number as a direct descendant of John Kelly the
Boy from Killane in the book "The Hendrick's of Mount Leinster'. My nieces
Gillian and Ciara and nephew Thomas are all about 6' tall. Only in recent
years we learned that they were directly descended from John Kelly
who is described in the song as "seven feet was his height and some
inches to spare and he looked like a King in command".
The family of another leader, the late JFK from nearby Dunganstown are also
descended from John Kelly. The tune is played by Pipe bands all over the
world and one wonders if it was played at the funeral of JFK. If so,
at the time the huge significance of the tune was not known then.
My late mother often sang her favorite songs, Kevin Barry and Boolavogue. In
her childhood she was terrorized at the sight of the Black and Tans. Her older
sister did help the situation very much as she often paraded up and down the
street in Doon, Co. Limerick, jeering at the tans asking them if they got the
'tsuggy' and the 'backie'. She was old enough to say sugar and tobacco
but choose to make the words sound worse.
The tans decided to punish my grandfather for this. Six of them arrived at his farm
at Toher Castle, Doon to take his horse. 'Er ..a fine bunch of republicans u got 'ere,
Mister Griffin", one of them said to the 5'4" Bill Griffin, pointing to the pigs
wallowing in a pool of stinking mud. Within two seconds, two tans were
thrown over the fence, to be joined by the others, two at a time.
Some very smelly Tans returned to Don that evening without the horse of a
Catholic man. The children, including my mother always stayed at the house
in the village to be near school. The next morning by some miracle the bomb
left at their back door in reprisal for the pig pooh bath did not detonate and
as a result I exist today to write this review.
My late mother HATED the Brits, but with one exception. She loved, worshiped
and adored a young guy with waist length blonde hair who appeared weekly
on an Irish quiz show called Joe Elliot.
Years later out here, loud noises disturbed my concentration. I looked up at
the TV and there was the said Joe Elliot on stage with a Rock Group called
Def Leppard. This was one of the times I wanted to pick up the phone and
call her to tell her her 'boyfriend' was really a noisy rock star. She had passed
away in 1994.
On my return via Atlanta a young man with shoulder length blonde hair walked
passed me to the luggage pick up area. He looked very like Rikki Rockett,
the drummer with Poison whose people I had recently helped on a matter
of great importance to him.
I had never met him but it would be so cool to talk to himself personally. He
was talking to another gentleman waiting for the bags to arrive. I decided
to listen to see if it might be Rikki as I did not have the courage to ask
where Poison might next be appearing.
The conversation was entirely about football. The blonde haired man had
an English accent and was very tall, so I deducted he was some English
football star as a person came up and asked for an autograph. His bag
arrived and as he reached past me, the man who had been talking to him
said "it was so great to meet you Joe".
At that I spun around, and said "You are NOT Joe Elliot, are you?". "Indeed,
Joe Elliot, I am, Ma'am", he said, looking amazed that I knew of him, yet for
a half an hour I had not recognized him.
There I was on my way home from Boolavogue, ogling a Britt. He told me he
was in the USA to do a TV show, then off to Tokyo, Australia and New
Zealand. He is incredibly humble, friendly, down to earth and nice.
I do not hate any Brits and definitely not Joe Elliot. I was so lucky I had not
asked him if he was Rikki Rockett. I might never have known he was my
late mother's hero if he happened to dislike Rikki or had heard any untrue
version of recent headlines on Rikki out here.
My grandparent's homes were raided many times by the Tans. My mother
was more terrified they would harm her doll JUJU than be shot herself for
parading in her Irish Dancing costume at the Feis at the Convent.
One good thing happened. My grandmother got a little parcel containing her
Rosary Beads. A Tan had written "Dear Mrs. Griffin, I stole your Rosary, for
what reason, I do not know, on one of those raids some years ago.
I am returning it to you and let you know that I am now a Catholic".
by Maire Peters
St. CORMAC'S CHURCH
BOOLAVOUGE
WEXFORD, IRELAND
SEPTEMBER 21, 2008