Folklore: Parnell's Rhyme
We'll wake the Harp of Tara's Hall
With music streams once more
And the birds shall ring with freedom
Throughout green Erin's shore.
Poetry: ‘My Mother Tongue’ by Maisie McAllister
My Irish isn’t clean, my grammar doesn’t gleam
In this soft light, but I still like
It’s punctuality, musicality, the spirituality with which we once spoke
My mother’s tongue was cut from my throat
Nationality by Thomas Davis
On nations fixed in right and truth,
God would bestow eternal youth.
Poetry: ‘Second Best’ by Robinson Jeffers
A hungry Gaelic chiefling in Ulster,
Whose blood with the Norseman's rotted in the rain on a heather hill:
These by the world's time were very recent
Forefathers of yours. And you are a maker of verses.
The Pascal Fire of Patrick by Denis Florence MacCarthy
To lands where Faith's bright flag unfurled
By those who here have knelt
Shall give unto a newer world
The sceptre of the Celt.
The Ballad of Father Gilligan by W.B. Yeats
'He Who is wrapped in purple robes,
With planets in His care,
Had pity on the least of things
Asleep upon a chair.
Brian Boru’s Speech at Clontarf by William Kenealy
God of heaven, bless our banner—nerve our sinews for the strife!
Fight we now for all that's holy—for our altars, land and life—
For red vengeance on the spoiler, whom the blazing temples trace
For the honor of our maidens and the glory of our race!