# A Tribute and a Claim

Composed, dated and signed, 7 April 1946, though unpublished
THE IRISH VOLUNTEERS.
A TRIBUTE AND A CLAIM.
By CAPTAIN D. D. SHEEHAN. (late Royal Munster Fusiliers)
They came from North and South  From all the Land they came: And they went forth  Yes, forth they went,
Not from a partitioned Territory  Or dismembered State. But from an integral isle that  Down the ages Held staunchly to ancient standards  Of primordial right and kingly rule.
Theirs the brave, high spirit of a warrior race  That no shallow spites or poisonous hates  Or gaunting jibes  Could curb or leash, When right and freedom were in jeopardy.
No narrow creed was theirs, no paltering thoughts of self.  They offered all that man can give, The white sacrifice of their lives  That Liberty and Right and Freedom May shower their mystic mercies over all the lands  And men and women walk the earth In meekness and in righteousness.
They came from North and South,  From South and North they came, The proud heirs of Eire’s tested valour.  Though helmeted in all the panoply of modern armour Their breast-plates still the flowering  Chivalry of the Red Branch And their pinions those that winged the Wild Geese  On their glorious ways of honour and renown. So forth they went  To fight the world’s fight ‘Gainst the dread Dragon Beast of tyranny and terror:  That its monstrous shape should ne’er again Affright the innocent, the weak and unoffending of the human race.
They came from Bantry and from Donegal,  From all the scattered plains and lowly hamlets in between, From beauteous Wicklow Vales and lovely Antrim Glens,  Some trudged with broken boots and blistered feet, Obedient to the fiercely-burning inward urge,  To fulfil themselves unto themselves And yielding all gain all  That it is given men to win In fulfilment of the Divine Law of Greater Love.
And so they came, and forth they went,  Those warrior sons of Eire, To battle for the right  On land and sea and air They wrote their blazing scripts of gallantry  That shall endure while men love noble deeds And tell the tales of rushing tides of battle.  The full telling of their glory and their valour Is yet not done nor ever shall be  Since, for every tale that finds the fixed imperishability of print And the proud prominence of the living page  There are countless deeds as brave Hidden away in secret shade  Until they come to light again, On the great unfolding and revelation of Resurrection Day.
Oh ! hide your heads in shame, you  Croaking sarpers of a narrow creed, Who would deny to Ireland  The golden glory of those shining deeds That, by their brightness have done more  To root out of human hearts The dark shadows of a darker age  Than all the preachings of well-intending missioners of peace and love Twixt Sassenach and Gael,  For the deed lives while the word is oft-time wasted on the wind: And the supernal splendour of their valour  Is as the sunburst rising from the sea Scattering the shadows of a long and evil night.
Retire ye to your tents of shame  You puny prattlers Who would debase the golden coinage of their heroism  Of that wondrous loyalty and deep devotion That sanctified the Common clay of man  And gave to life the privilege of dying That Truth and Liberty and Honour may survive.
We take pride in that
 From North and South they came From South and North came they  And forth they went Went to where danger shone with dazzling brightness  Flinging its challenge to their dauntless hearts. And answered Eugene Esmonde and the other gallant men of Eire  Who, winging through the lightning shafts of war, Won a splendid immortality  And, dying, left a deathless heritage To their race and motherland.  Such hallowed glory ‘tis That make men bare their heads in pride and reverence  For this magnificent redemption of a Nation’s honour.
Their earthly flame went out, but their spirits release  Set new suns in the heavens to light the darkness of our days And to cement that finer feeling of brotherhood and understanding
That sweetly and surely is growing  Through the rotting roots of olden hates, Until its incense shall dispel  The noxious fumes of cancerous spleens, And best forgotten ills.
And be it, too, remembered  That we of an older day, In equal piety of purpose,  Laid our own offerings on the alter Of our Country’s honour,  Nor small were they, nor scantily-measured out But the full outpourings of this constant faith:  That when conscience calls the spirit must obey Else, life is nothingness  And living but an empty shell of selfishness.
Nor shall our sacrifice and theirs  Be vain and unrewarded: For it is written: No least sacrifice of love goes gainless:  Due payment comes, Not in the molten mintage of material things,  But in the eternal sublimation of the spirit, And its noble dedication to the Divine cause  Of Justice and of Truth. This then is the reward:  The soul is made one with God and His good Angels In battling for the right.
This modest tribute do we pay,  In pride and thankfulness To those who came  From North and South and South and North,  And who went forth, in faith and fervour, To battle for the right.  And this the claim we boldly so assert, On their behalf and ours:  That by their service and their sacrifice, Linked with the freedom-loving men of Britain,  Full surely have they brought nearer that Great Day. When no Border will there be to sunder  And no hates divide, The Saxon and the Gael,  But a blessed flowering of friendship and goodwill, Shall permeate the pageant of their lives.
E.N.D.
This work is in the public domain worldwide because it has been so released by the copyright holder.
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