take his clothes off, and run naked through the country. But at evening
he'd open the school; and the neighbours that would be working all day
would gather in to him, and he'd teach them through the night; and there
Raftery would be in the middle of them.' His chief historical poem is
the 'Talk with the Bush,' of over three hundred lines. Many of the
people can repeat it, or a part of it, and some possess it in
manuscript. The bush, a forerunner of the 'Talking Oak' or the 'Father
of the Forest,' gives its recollections, which go back to the times of
the Firbolgs, the Tuatha De Danaan, 'without heart, without humanity';
the Sons of the Gael; the heroic Fianna, who 'would never put more than
one man to fight against one'; Cuchulain 'of the Grey Sword, that broke
every gap'; till at last it comes to 'O'Rourke's wife that brought a
blow to Ireland': for it was on her account the English were first
called in. Then come the crimes of the English, made redder by the crime
of Martin Luther. Henry VIII 'turned his back on God and denied his
first wife.' Elizabeth 'routed the bishops and the Irish Church. James
and Charles laid sharp scourges on Ireland.... Then Cromwell and his
hosts swept through Ireland, cutting before him all he could. He gave
estates and lands to Cromwellians, and he put those that had a right to
them on mountains.' Whenever he brings history into his poems, the same
strings are touched. 'At the great judgment, Cromwell will be hiding,
and O'Neill in the corner. And I think if William can manage it at all,
he won't stand his ground against Sarsfield.' And a moral often comes at
the end, such as: 'Don't be without courage, but join together; God is
stronger than the Cromwellians, and the cards may turn yet.'

For Raftery had lived through the '98 Rebellion, and the struggle for
Catholic Emancipation; and he saw the Tithe War, and the Repeal
movement; and it is natural that his poems, like those of the poets
before him, should reflect the desire of his people for 'the mayntenance