JOHN TOBIN
Thank you for the memories
That you have given me,
Your life with May and Rody
In your home in Boherbee.
My head is filled with happy times,
I can see them still so clear,
When I close my eyes at night time
So many things seem near.
Cutting timber with the crosscut,
Pulping mangolds in the shed,
Sowing long straight drills of Kerrs Pinks,
Watching hens and calves being fed.
You ploughed the fields in springtime,
Your drills were straight and long,
Your wrists, tho’ slight, were muscular
And sinewy and strong.
You always ploughed with horses
As you prepared for sowing,
The “red” belonged to Corbins,
The black horse was your own.
The meadow, too, has memories,
When our backs were brown and tanned,
I remember pulling butts of trams
And getting thistles in my hand.
I remember making trams of hay,
And working on ‘till late,
But my ould trams kept falling down,
While yours remained up straight.
And “Shep” came to the meadow,
He was one of Peter Treacy’s dogs,
And while we were forking up the hay,
Shep was barking at the frogs.
I remember too you killed the pigs
For the neighbours all around,
And I often held the bucket
To keep the blood from off the ground.
Joe Sheehan’s was the last you killed,
If memory serves me right,
There was pork steak then for supper
When you finished up that night.
I recall, too, you thatched the roofs
With your sally rods and straw,
And the finished product was as good
As any roof you saw.
There was Sunday night in Peter’s pub,
When you were so alive,
You drank your glass of whiskey
And played your forty-five.
You could turn your hand to any job,
You always had a knack
Of making things look easy,
Never having to go back.
Your memory, too, impressed me,
You had powers of great recall,
You told it as it happened,
Your tales were never tall.
These memories I will cherish,
As today we come to pray,
And we remember Boherbee,
Yourself, and Rodge, and May.
Written by Michael O’Brien & published
in Mining the Past 2014