Believe it or not, Michael Hartnett is not the only poet to hail from Newcastle West!  There have always been local balladeers and poets who have pandered to their local audience in the town and in the surrounding parishes.  In Hartnett’s brilliant poem Maiden Street Ballad, he mentions two of these troubadours and he takes pride in saying that he intends to hold people to account ‘like Aherne and Barry before me’.  He will, therefore, follow in the illustrious footsteps of Jack Aherne from Lower Maiden Street and Danny Barry who was born in Bothar Buí.  He will be true to them and speak out like they had done in the generation before him.  In the introductory verses of that famous ballad, Hartnett sets out his stall and warns us in advance of what we are to expect from him:

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Now before you get settled, take a warning from me

for I’ll tell you some things that you won’t like to hear –

we were hungry and poor down in Lower Maiden Street,

a fact I will swear on the Bible.

There were shopkeepers then, quite safe and secure –

seven Masses a week and then shit on the poor;

ye know who I mean, of that I am sure,

and if they like they can sue me for libel.

 

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They say you should never speak ill of the dead

but a poet must say what is inside his head;

let drapers and bottlers now tremble in dread:

they no longer can pay men slave wages.

Let hucksters and grocers and traders join in

for they all bear the guilt of a terrible sin:

they thought themselves better than their fellow men –

now the nettles grow thick on their gravestones.

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So come all you employers, beware how you act

for a poet is never afraid of a fact:

your grasping and greed I will always attack

like Aherne and Barry before me.

My targets are only the mean and the proud

and the vandals who try to make dirt of this town,

if their fathers were policemen they’d still feel the clout

of a public exposure in poetry.

Danny Barry was born in Bothar Buí in 1911 and lived his whole life in Newcastle West. He married Margaret (Peig) Sayers from Ferriter’s Quarter, Dunquin, and together, they had four children: Breda, Mary, Kevin and Dennis. Danny worked as a summons server and pound keeper in Newcastle West. He was known to many as the “Sheriff” and to others as the “Bard of Bothar Buí”.

Michael Hartnett believed that Danny Barry of Newcastle West was an example of the local poet at his best. He lived most of his married life at 46 Assumpta Park, just round the corner from Hartnett’s childhood home. He died in 1973 while still in his early 60s. He is still remembered with a shudder by many of the people targeted by his verse.  In praise of Danny’s poetry, Hartnett has said ‘he mocked the foolish, the vain, the craw thumper, the jack-in-office, and the bogus patriot’.

Danny’s son Kevin and Kevin’s sons, Dan and Graham Barry have done sterling work collecting the remnants of their grandfather’s poems in recent years.  Remember these local poets did not publish their work or expect to have it dissected and analysed in academic circles.  They never considered themselves as professional poets in the first place.  Their songs and ballads were written for local consumption, to be recited in their homes, in local bars, in local ‘rambling houses’, or occasionally given a public performance in The Square.  In a recently unearthed radio documentary entitled ‘Poems Plain’, broadcast by Radio Eireann in 1979 and produced at the time by Donal Flanagan, Michael Hartnett praises the work of these local balladeers and especially the work of Danny Barry:

They seldom publish their work. They write about local events. They’re firmly rooted in 19th-century verse forms. They don’t worry about identity, life, love, or any of the big themes that begin with capital letters. As a result, they’re not accepted by the arbiters of literary taste.

So, if these poets don’t write about the big mainstream issues, ‘life or love’, what do they write about?  In the documentary, Hartnett tells his audience that they concentrate on local issues:

They commemorate hurling matches, football matches, disasters and they usually write badly when dealing with these themes. The ballads they produce are virtually interchangeable. Just a few names need to be changed here and there. But when they deal with humorous themes, or when they satirize, they can be brilliant.

In this, Hartnett suggests they form an unbroken line that stretches back into the Gaelic past, especially into the 18th century. The professional poets even then, such as Dáibhí Ó Bruadair, who was lucky and privileged enough to enjoy the patronage of the Fitzgerald family of Springfield Castle in Broadford, County Limerick, despised these local poets, ‘the sráid éigse, he called them, the street poets’.

Thankfully, due mainly to the intervention of Kevin Barry and his sons Dan and Graham and other members of the family much of his best work has been saved for posterity. Along with his other contemporary, the often notorious, Jack Aherne, only the more salubrious of their sound bites are still retained in people’s memories. Some of their surviving verses are still libelous, but as Hartnett says in the documentary, ‘the trouble with poetry is, no matter how vicious, how scandalous, how libelous, it becomes public property once distributed, whether by word of mouth or slipped under people’s doors early in the morning’.  Hartnett, like Barry and Aherne before him, was wont to deliver verses to his neighbours in this manner on his return to Newcastle West in 1975, especially for those who had recently passed away.  His Epitaph for John Kelly, Blacksmith, and In Memoriam Sheila Hackett are but two such examples of poems written following the death of a friend or neighbour.

Hartnett, who took no prisoners in his role as critic, dismisses some of Danny Barry’s work as weak and overly sentimental:

Like all Irish poets, he was in love with places, and his verses are full of place names. But these poems happen also to be his weakest poems. He fell heavily into an almost cloying sentimentality, made more syrupy by echoes from Robert Service and Thomas Moore.

Barry wrote about local places, Newcastle West, Glenastar, Glenmageen, Rooska Hill, the river Arra but Hartnett tells us that ‘his real strength lay in his satires, or in those poems in which he dealt with people’.

One such poem is The Old School in which he mentions two of the teachers, J.D. Musgrave and George Ambrose, who taught in the old Courtenay School.  Master Musgrave was the principal of the school until his retirement in 1915.  The poem was probably written around 1955 at the time when the old school was demolished to be replaced by the present building in Gortboy.  There are slight echoes of Goldsmith’s The Village Schoolmaster here, but the poem is firmly rooted in the 18th century Anglo Irish ballad tradition, as in such songs as The Limerick Rake.

The Old School

Gone are the days when hearts were young and gay

Gone are the boys from the old school away

Gone are the monks the bright boys and the fool

Gone are the days of the old Courtenay School

If you wander back in memory to the days of long ago

When you were young and happy and worry you did not know

Ducking out to the back alley to play a game of ball

Or trying to jump the highest point of Boody Fitz’s wall

Or mooching in the Majors where the breeze was fresh and cool

And these are the happy memories of the old Courtenay School

 

Gone is J.D. Musgrave a gentleman was he

A student of prognosis he could tell what was to be

‘Twas often said he was severe he made them face the wall

But he was a man of progress he made scholars of them all

And there was Master Ambrose as George he was better known

For nicknames and for wisdom of superiors he had none

There was no one could afford to miss for he had an awful saying

You had better brush it up me boys cause you have sawdust for a brain

He christened many a pupil from his lofty rostrum stool

And no one knew his own name at the old Courtenay school.

 

So goodbye old school  memories no more your rooms will ring

Of children’s happy voices and the happy songs they sing

My dear old school you are silent now ’cause they took your heart away

No more the tramp of children’s feet soon you will crumble and decay

But I will not forget you and the happy days of yore

Nor will the boys across the seas in far and foreign shore

Our boyhood terms our boyhood joys a lingering memory

That no time or age can yet blot out in our hearts you will always be

For there are many words when spoken cause a tear to dim their eye

But the saddest little word of all is the simple word Goodbye.

Here Danny Barry uses words and misuses words which only a master of verse in the 18th century could have done.  He uses the lovely expression, “a student of prognosis” to describe Master Musgrave. Interestingly, his son, Maurice Musgrave later married Dolly McMahon who ran a public house where Gearoid Whelan now has his establishment.  She is the Dolly Musgrave that Hartnett immortalises in Maiden Street Ballad:

‘twas in Dolly Musgrave’s I drank my first glass

As is obvious from the poem nicknames have always been synonymous with Newcastle West.  Hartnett, himself, in Maiden Street Ballad, describes the many from the town who had to take the emigrant boat to England and elsewhere:

Off went Smuggy and Eye-Tie and Goose-Eye and Dol,

off went Ratty and Muddy and Squealer and Gull;

then the Bullock and Dando and Gallon were gone,

all looking for work among strangers.

The old men who stayed, time soon thinned their ranks –

like Gogga and Ganzie and Dildo and Sank,

and the Major and Bowler felt death’s icy hand;

old Maiden Street went to the graveyard.

Hartnett himself admitted that the list given in the verse above is only a small sample of the nicknames given to the natives of the town.  The nickname ‘Smuggy’ is interesting – it’s from the Irish smugach, meaning ‘snotty’!

In his notes for that great ballad, Hartnett tells us that, ‘it used to be said that if a stranger walked from Forde’s Corner (now Bourke’s Corner at the top of Maiden Street) he’d have a nickname before he got to Leslie’s Ating House’ (where Richard (Dickie) Liston had his sweet shop).  Also in an article written for The Irish Times on 11^th November 1968 entitled ‘Poet’s Progress’, he declared that ‘in small towns in Ireland, unless a man has a nickname (a reputation, good or bad), he hardly exists at all’.

Hartnett himself was simply referred to as ‘The Poet’ and he gave his younger brother John the nickname ‘Wraneen’.  In the Maiden Street Ballad, he refers to his brother Denis as ‘Dinny the Postman’.   Dinny, who has sadly only recently passed away, was also often referred to as ‘Halpin’.  In Danny Barry’s poem The Old School, George Ambrose is credited with giving each student a nickname and, Barry uses the poignant and telling phrase, ‘and no one knew his own name at the old Courtenay school’.  I’m sure that this also applied to the teachers!

Hartnett informs us that Barry’s poem, The Christmas Tree, deals with an actual happening. A few men from Maiden Street in Newcastle West decided to erect a Christmas tree in the street. They cut it down in Glenmageen, an area reputed to be haunted by a witch known as Sprid na Barna.  Glenmageen is located about four miles south of Newcastle West and people can now visit the townland as they walk or cycle on the new Limerick Greenway. The stories of Sprid na Barna were well known, and the area near the present-day Barna Gardens was greatly feared by the local people. Indeed, it was said that only a few tough men would go home after dark along the road she haunted. Again Hartnett is fulsome in his praise for the poet:

Danny Barry’s simple evocation of Sprid and her victims is extraordinary.  Not because it is great poetry, but because he does not question the truth of the event at all. By the way, the Silver Dollar Saloon, which is a strange Hollywood, Western-type name, is a pub in Newcastle West, which was then run by the Flynn family, and is now run by the Kelly family.

The poem is called The Christmas Tree. Again I mention Robert Service, and it’s evident in the meter, even the introduction is pure Service.

 The Christmas Tree

A bunch of the boys from Maiden Street, one Wednesday afternoon,

Were drinking and awaiting in the Silver Dollar Saloon,

Waiting for a lorry to convey them to Glenmageen.

And they brought from there a Christmas tree, the finest ever seen.

 

They put it up in splendour, bedecked with fairy lights.

It was a wonderful tree, a beautiful tree, that lightened the darkest night.

Now, the festive season passed away, but this Christmas tree was there to stay.

In time it became the talk of the town, for none of the boys dared take it down.

 

They were stricken with a malady the doctors could not say,

And there is one poor chap who now resides at the back of Shaw’s today.

Now, you have heard of Sprid na Barna, that very naughty dame,

That evil maid of Glenmageen, of the haunting ghostly fame.

 

The clergy had to banish her between the tree and the bark.

No more she would haunt and terrify the neighbours after dark.

Now the moral of this ditty I want you all to know

‘Twas a tree that grew in Glenmageen twenty years ago.

 

Now what I am trying to tell you will cause you all to frown

That the amadáns from Maiden Street have brought auld sprig* to town.

Now when the blackthorn blooms again and the sheepdogs howl at the full of moon

You could meet auld sprig with a glass of gin in the Silver Dollar Saloon.

*Sprid na Barna was sometimes mispronounced locally as Sprig na Barna

This beautiful video has been produced by Danny Barry’s grandson, Dan Barry. The poem is narrated by the poet Michael Hartnett and it is taken from a radio documentary that he did in 1979 for RTE Radio entitled Poems Plain.  The programme was produced by Donal Flanagan. The video contains copyrighted material that is being used for educational purposes under the doctrine of ‘fair use’. The use of this material is not intended to infringe upon the copyright owner’s rights. The material is used here solely for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Danny Barry perhaps wrote a couple of hundred poems, many of them now lost or mouldering in the cupboards of his victims. A handful, between twenty and twenty-five, have been recovered due to the perseverance of Danny’s family, especially his daughter Mary Flanagan, and in recent times by his grandchildren Dan and Graham Barry.

Michael Hartnett believed that the best poem Danny Barry wrote, is a piece called The Eviction. Again, it is based on a natural happening.  It is full of irony and humour, and of course, the elemental Irish hate for landlords, sheriffs, and bailiffs is very evident.

 The Eviction

My name is Peter Shea, my age is fifty-seven.

The old Dock Road was my abode, a station next to heaven.

I was happy as an angel, with my lot I was content,

But I took the drinking porter, and I could not pay the rent.

So now to all good neighbours, a sad tale I must state.

I was forced to go from my bungalow, beside the Sandpit Gate.

 

Tom Hartnett was my landlord, and a damn bad one was he.

I only owed him six years’ rent when he kindly summoned me.

I tried to calm his temper, but I could not calm old Tom,

So to ease the situation, I took in sweet Maggie Nom.

Poor Maggie was so gentle and mild in her debate

That she won my heart and I lost my house beside the Sandpit Gate.

 

It was on a fine September morn, the year was thirty-one,

The sheriff came and flung me out, myself and Maggie Nom.

As he called to his head bailiff, ‘Is there any more to go?’

I said, wait a while your honour, sir, you forgot poor Maggie’s po.

And when he raised the lid off in candour I must state,

I smothered all the neighbours that live around the Sandpit Gate.

 

So now to finish up my rhyme, there’s one thing I must say

About the smiling face and the charming grace of my darling Gurky Shea.

For when the world frowned at me, she did not hesitate

With me to stay, and perhaps to lay, down by the Sandpit Gate.

Hartnett is effusive in his praise for this poem and as already stated he was by nature a very severe critic.  His verdict here is glowing!

If you compare this poem, with the hundreds similar to it, which were written in Munster in the Irish language 200 years ago, it is easy to see the link between, say, Seán Ó Tuama and Danny Barry. The same love of place, of the cherished phrase, of galloping meters and tumbling rhyme, the same disregard for the very thin skins of the fool and of the oppressor, and amazingly enough, they had the same effect.

Danny Barry could frighten his enemies with a threat of public laughter,  and yet he achieved what all poets try to achieve. Because of the earlier efforts of Danny Barry and Jack Aherne, Michael Hartnett was very conscious of his local audience, and when he returned to Newcastle West in the mid-70s he wrote many ribald verses for that audience culminating in the publication of Maiden Street Ballad in 1980.  Like Hartnett, Danny Barry managed to ‘write a few songs for his people’, he was recognized by them as a poet, he could make his people laugh or sing or tremble, and he was well aware of the fragility of his own meagre attempts in verse. He says in one of his little poems, called Remembrance,

And so it will be when he is gone.

Someone will sing of him in song.

Someone will read what he held dear.

But too late for praise he will not hear.

 

References and Links:

“Poems Plain – Danny Barry” was a short radio documentary presented by Michael Hartnett on RTE radio in 1979 and produced by Donal Flanagan.  All quotations in this article come from a transcript of the documentary.  Listen to the full radio documentary by clicking on the link below

https://youtu.be/BcckbNKdYn4?si=9IeX-nx_zwYSCG3I

Listen to Hartnett recite ‘The Eviction’ by Danny Barry with photos added by Dan Barry from Sean Kelly’s collection

https://youtu.be/keIVQW6W9qQ?si=ysm79q64-UXq8LF3

Attached are a few more of Sean Kelly’s photos of Maiden Street taken from here https://ncwoldentimes.com/maiden-street-2/.

You might also like to browse through Michael’s own publication of Maden Street Ballad which you can see here: https://ncwoldentimes.com/maiden-street-ballad-2/

The author is indebted in particular to Dan Barry, grandson of Danny Barry, for invaluable background information in the preparation of this blog post.  The Barry family has done amazing work in collecting the scattered remnants of their grandfather’s life’s work.  They have done us all a great service.

Jack Aherne’s Supermarket in Lower Maiden Street. Jack was also a coal merchant and he also sold sand and gravel from the sandpit behind the store in what was known as Aherne’s Field – now the location for the Lidl Supermarket and the Scanglo factory. When Jack Aherne closed his supermarket the premises were bought by Tom Moran who carried on an electrical business on the site. Jack’s father, also Jack Aherne is the other noted bard and rhymer whom Hartnett refers to in Maiden Street Ballad – ‘like Aherne and Barry before me’. Photograph by Sean Kelly.