THE FAMINE VICTIM They found her dead by the hawthorn hedge, Her wasted form still fair; In silent sorrow her life went out, She died of hunger there. No roof to shelter her dear young head, No ear to list her sighs; No lip, to whisper a parting prayer, For death had closed her eyes. Alone, through the dreary, dismal night, In anguish, pain and fear, No hand to soothe her feverish brow; No solace, help or cheer. Where was her father, her mother, where, She was her parents' pride! Ah, why did she live to see them starve! They too of hunger died. But the God of justice saw her woe, And heard her plaintive cry, And took with paternal care her soul, With him to rest on high. And his hand shall smite, His wrath shall fall His vengeance stern and sure, On the cruel wrong, oppression fell, That rob and slay the poor. They dug her grave near the willow tree, 'Twas soft and peaty soil -- Oh, blighting Famine's withering clutch, Was on the hand of Toil! No coffin had she, or "blessed clay," Only a peasant's prayer. But that lonely spot is holy ground, A martyr sleepeth there. -- Patrick T. McGOVERN "The subject of this poem was found on the farm of my maternal grandfather (now in the possession of my Uncle Edward TAYLOR) of Currycramp in the parish of Mohill, County Leitrim," recalls Edward FLYNN in the 1995 issue of the yearly 'Leitrim Guardian' magazine. "The spot where her body was found is on the western slope of the hill near the blackthorn hedge. She is buried in the brink of the bog not far from where she was found. Such deaths were of almost daily occurrence in 1846-7, and the people were so weakened by hunger and the ravages of the famine that there were not enough left to bear the dead to the graveyards, or to provide coffins. Hence numbers were buried in ditches while the government looked on and did nothing to relieve the situation or the condition which its own inhuman laws had created, and the sovereign Victoria extended her sympathy, but sympathy brought no bread. And so the 'bold peasantry, their country's pride' were destroyed. Patrick McGOVERN was born in Gortnaguillon, in the parish of Kiltubrid about three miles from the village of Keshcarrigan, Co. Leitrim, 24th October 1861, the son of Thomas McGOVERN and his wife, a TAYLOR from Currycramp parish of Eslin Bridge. Patrick emigrated to the USA in the 1880s. While in Ireland he was a member of the Kiltubrid Land League and believed to have contributed some poetry to the 'Irish Emerald' or some other radical papers edited by Arthur GRIFFITH. In America Patrick went first to his sister in Chicago and worked there for some time. While there he married Kathleen McNAMARA a native of Lisdoonvarna, Co. Clare. He eventually settled in St. Louis, MO, where he had a dry goods store. He had five children, all now deceased. He was a member of Gaelic societies and contributed poems to Irish American papers. He never returned to Ireland. Only a few broken walls of the home he loved so much are now standing. The old holly tree, of which he wrote one of his nicest poems is now gone. The poem 'Building the Land League Hut' related to the Proughlish evictions which took place about 1881, and where huts were built in one day for the evicted tenants. He has two nieces living in the USA, and I received those particulars and the poems from his niece, Mary McCARTHY, Lorain, OH. I am a nephew of the poet, and he has several cousins, McGOVERNs and TAYLORs still in Ireland."