A LEITRIM WOMAN People of Ireland -- I am an old woman; I am near my end; I have lived, now, for seventy-five years in your midst; I have grown up among you, toiled among you, suffered with you and enjoyed with you; I have given and received in faith and honour; what was to be endured I have endured, what was to be fought against I have fought against, what was to be done I have done; I have married in my country; I have borne two men-children and three women-children, two sons and three daughters of a Fenian father; I have brought them up to love and serve Ireland, to fight for her to death, to work for her at home and abroad, to cherish the old glory of Ireland and to strive manfully to bring in new light -- to go forward; I have brought them up in faith, to know freedom, and love justice, to take sides with the poor against their spoilers, against the leaders who say to a strong class "Hold all thou hast, take all thou canst," to unbind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne from men's shoulders, to render unto the people what is the people's; I have brought them up to believe in our Lord's prayer, to believe in the coming of his Kingdom upon earth and to labour that it come indeed; The strength of my body has gone into the soil of this land, and the strength of my children's bodies; the strength of my soul and the strength of my children's soul has been given in the cause of the people of this land; I have suffered, I have endured, when they were in exile and in danger of death -- now my husband and one son are dead, my last son deported without trial, uncharged -- the spoilers and their friends the strong and their helpers have taken him from me; I am old, now, and near to death; those who would have supported me and eased my going have been taken from me -- I looked for a little peace before the hour of my departure, my last son in the house with me, to see me into the grave, they have drive him forth -- may the curse of heaven, if there be a heaven, light on them; the curse of the widow and childless light on them; the curse of the poor without advocates, the curse of the old without protection, the curse of a mother light on them. -- Lyle Donaghy (1902-1949)