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I ’d rather live in Bohemia than in any other land. |
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in the fall of 1995, i visited a bookstore in stamford, connecticut. browsing the magazine section, i found a new glossy journal called "The World of Hibernia." it was the winter 1995 edition. opening it, i happened upon a picture. what i saw astounded me. i was looking, i thought, at a picture of my father. but it was not my father. it was john boyle o'reilly. i knew about john boyle o'reilly. he was something of a legend in my family. my father and my uncles had always told stories about him, stories that they heard from their own father***, stories long passed down in the family. some of these stories are here. some i have yet to put down. i bought the magazine that day for the princely sum of $16 and i gave it to my father soon after as a gift. i think he had it framed :-). i have created this page so that everyone else may know about john boyle o'reilly and his legacy. my small tribute to a worthy man. |
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Poet, novelist, and editor, b. at Douth Castle, Drogheda, Ireland, 24
June, 1844; d. at Hull, Massachusetts, 10 August, 1890; second son of
William David O'Reilly and Eliza Boyle. He attended the National School,
conducted by his father, and was employed successively as printer on the
"Drogheda Argus", and on the staff of "The Guardian",
Preston, England; he afterwards became a trooper in the Tenth Hussars.
Entering actively in the Fenian movement, believing in his inexperience that
Ireland's grievances could be redressed only by physical force, he was
betrayed to the authorities and duly court-martialed. On account of his
extreme youth, his life sentence was commuted to twenty years' penal
servitude in Australia. Later study of his country's cause made him before
long an earnest advocate of constitutional agitation as the only way to
Irish Home Rule. In 1869, O'Reilly escaped from Australia, with the
assistance of the captain of a whaling barque from New Bedford,
Massachusetts. In 1870, he became editor of "The Pilot", Boston,
and from 1876 until his death in 1890 he was also part proprietor, being
associated with Archbishop Williams of Boston. His books include four
volumes of poems: "Songs of the Southern Seas", "Songs,
Legends, and Ballads", "The Statues in the Block", and
"In Bohemia"; a novel, "Moondyne", based on his
Australian experiences; his collaboration in another novel, "The King's
Men", and "Athletics and Manly Sport". A sincere Catholic,
his great influence, used lavishly in forwarding the interests of younger
Catholics destined to special careers, and in lifting up the lowly without
regard to any claim but their need, was for twenty years a valuable factor in
Catholic progress in America. He was married in 1872 to Mary Murphy, in
Boston, who died in 1897. Their four daughters survive them.
Source: the catholic encyclopedia |
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LAMB: . . . who was John Boyle O'Reilly? And why would you name a high
school after him in Boston? Mr. KENEALLY: Well, John Boyle O'Reilly was one of the prisoners sent to Australia with my great-uncle. In 1868 they arrived. They were Irish Republicans involved in an abortive uprising. But O'Reilly was a British soldier and he rebelled from within the ranks of the British army, and so he got a life sentence. My uncle, John Keneally, ultimately of LA, got a 10-year sentence. And he was a very noble creature. You can see--these men were amongst the first men to be mug shot in history, and their mug shots are in the book. And you can tell from the mug shot of Boyle O'Reilly what a noble and handsome and charismatic creature he is. As a young man then--he's in western Australia, which is--was--is a--something of an oubliette of a prison into which men are cast and forgotten, and he escapes on a Yankee whaler called the Gazelle. His escape is very graphic. And I found that researching whaling in--for this book was fascinating, because there was more than one Captain Ahab. It--it--and, of course, there--there's a story later in the book that--which has a Captain Ahab figure. And, of course, you--it was fascinating to me that you could get these temperance Yankee Protestants to rescue Irish political prisoners from places like western Australia. That fascinated me. John Boyle O'Reilly escaped on Gazelle. He became a pluralist American, settled in Boston, a--a Democrat, of course. He was heavily involved in Irish causes, including the purchase of a whaler to send to Australia to rescue his fellow prisoners. He became a famous literary man, amongst other things. He became a--a writer of such eminence that he read from the same platform, in a troika of literary stars, with Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. He looked after the young Oscar Wilde, when Oscar Wilde came to Boston. Oscar Wilde did rather puzzle him, as he puzzled most Americans, but Oscar Wilde's mother is a figure in the book. She was a great Irish rebel figure. She was a bourgeois Protestant, flamboyant girl. LAMB: Speranza. Mr. KENEALLY: And--and Speranza, yes. She was a wonderful figure. In any case, Boyle O'Reilly is interesting. He ended up owning the Boston Pilot. Grover Cleveland, I think it was, said of him that the--Massachusetts couldn't be won for the Democrat Party without Boyle O'Reilly, without his support. He was a friend of some of the early political--Irish political demagogs of--of Boston, including Patrick A. Collins, the first Irishman to become mayor of Boston, a friend of Honey Fitzgerald and--and the--the Kennedy forebearers. But he also had friends amongst the old high Protestant, Brahman abolitionists. You know, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and--and Wendell Phillips, and Lloyd Garrison, and Mariah Lydia Childe. He was--he--he turn--the--the Pilot was a paper, which contrary to the kind of south Boston ethos, espoused the cause of the African-American, the newly liberated slaves, the Native Americans, cr--cried for--after Custer's--the Custer massacre out in Wyoming? Wyoming? LAMB: Montana? Mr. KENEALLY: Montana, yes--called for tolerance, because these people had lost their land and that's what had caused the conflict, and it was the same cause of conflict as Ireland's conflicts. And he published the names of companies which would not employ Irish. But he published, also, the names of companies which would not employ Jews. So he's an extraordinary figure for his period. He had a blind spot about the Chinese. He said, `Chinese will never be American citizens. They come here for different reasons,' he said. No--no one's perfect, of course, but he was an extraordinary person for his period. And he was involved in Irish causes. He went off the idea of radical Irish activism, but he supported the Irish party in the House of Commons. He supported home rule, the movement for self-government for Ireland, and he supported the Land League, which was a method of civil disobedience which the Irish devised to get their land back. And the boycott, the famous boycott, which was put into operation against a land agent called Captain Boycott in County Mayo, was the beginning of that--wa--wa--was the beginning of the deliverance of the land back to the Irish away from the landlords. So he supported a number of extraordinary initiatives and was considered hugely--a--a hugely significant American-Irishman, hence there are many statues in his honor in Boston, and a high school. |
| Source: interview of thomas keneally, author of "the great shame" |
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY |
Poet, patriot, prisoner, sportsman and orator, John Boyle O'Reilly (1844-1890) was the most influential Boston Irishman of the 19th century. Born at Dowth Castle in County Meath, he was a printer's apprentice and later joined a British Army regiment as a way of spreading Fenianism among British soldiers. In 1866 he was sentenced to a penal colony in Australia for crimes against the Crown, but made a daring escape on a New Bedford Whaler named Gazelle. He arrived in Boston in 1870, and for the next 20 years was recognized as a powerful spokesman for the downtrodden, at times singlehandedly bridging the gap between people of various races, creeds and nationalities. The O'Reilly Memorial was commissioned to Daniel Chester French, and dedicated in 1896. US Vice President Adlai Stevenson attended the ceremonies, as did O'Reilly's wife and four daughters. He is buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, MA. Location: Boylston and Fenway Streets (MBTA: Green Line to Auditorium) Source: the irish heritage trail |
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eulogy |
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“he was branded an outcast some twenty years ago,
stranded in a strange land . . . today, wept for all over the world where
men are free and seeking to be free, for his large heart went out to all in
trouble, and his soul is the soul of a free man; all he had he gave to
humanity and asked no return” |
| Source: speech by premier of australia |
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tribute |
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“Few men have felt so powerfully the divinus afflatus of Poesy; few
natures have been so fitted to give it worthy response. As strong as
it was delicate and tender, as sympathetic and tearful as it was bold, his
soul was a harp of truest tone, which felt the touch of the ideal
everywhere, and spontaneously breathed responsive music, joyous or mournful,
vehement or soft. Such a nature needed an environment of romance, and
romantic indeed was his career throughout. In boyhood his imagination
feasts on the weird songs and legends of the Celt; in youth his heart
agonizes over that saddest and strangest romance in all history, -the wrongs
and woes of his mother-land, that Niobe of the nations; in manhood, because
he dared to wish her free, he finds himself a doomed felon, an exiled
convict in what he calls himself "the nether world"; then,
bursting his prison bars, a hunted fugitive, reaching the haven of this land
of liberty penniless and unknown, but rising by sheer force of his genius
and his worth, till the best and the noblest in our country vie in doing
honor to his name.” |
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Source: Introduction (page v) to John Boyle O'Reilly,
His Life, Poems And Speeches, By His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, October 13th, 1890 |
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obituary |
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The New York Times "John Boyle O'Reilly Dead |
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Boston, Aug. 10 -. . . In the death of Mr. O'Reilly the Irish race in America loses one of its brightest representatives, and the literary world one of its most thoughtful and active poets. He was born at Dowth Castle, County Meath , Ireland, June 28, 1844, on the spot where was fought the famous battle of the Boyne. William David O'Reilly, his father, was a well-known mathematician and an intense patriot. His mother, Eliza Boyle, was a woman of fine literary attainments, coming from the stock of the famous Allens, one of whom, Col. John Allen, in 1808 led his company through the breach at Astorga, and under the concentrated fire of 2,000 men, planted the tri-color of France on the ramparts of the fortress. It was from his mother's side and the associations of his boyhood that the poet patriot derived those tendencies which made him the man of action, thought, and tender sensibility. Young O'Reilly was carefully educated by his father, and when yet a boy he was taught the printer's trade in the office of the Drogheda Argus. For several years he set type in various English cities and did odd jobs at shorthand reporting. It was while working in this capacity on an English journal that the revolutionary movement in Ireland began, the movement that changed his whole career and led to the incidents that afterward went to make him prominent. It was the love of his mother country that led O'Reilly to return to Ireland in May, 1863. Here he enlisted in the Fourth Hussars, the Prince of Wales's own dragoons, and worked zealously to spread republican principles. So well did he succeed in his own and other regiments that disaffections became alarmingly rife, and the Government for three years worked diligently to unearth the cause of the insurrectionary movement. At last O'Reilly was discovered, arrested, and brought to trial for high treason June 27, 1866, being subsequently found guilty on five capital charges. Then, with four others, he was sentenced to be shot, but this sentence was afterward commuted to twenty years' penal servitude. O'Reilly spent a year in the English prisons working in chain gangs. In November, 1867, he was taken to a crowded convict ship and transported to the penal colony in Western Australia. On the voyage, which was long and dreary, O'Reilly relieved the monotony by publishing a weekly paper called the Wild Goose, twenty-seven numbers of which were published before the vessel reached her destination, Jan. 10, 1868. Then began the seemingly hopeless round of his service in the penal colony. The chances of escape from the sea-girt prison were desperate, and death confronted the man bold enough to brave them. But O'Reilly was of earnest stuff, and he knew no danger. Thus it was that there appeared, in the official Police Gazette for Western Australia, April, 1869, the following among the announcements of absconders: "John Boyle O'Reilly, registered No. 9,843, Imperial convict; arrived in the colony per convict ship Hougomont in 1868, sentenced to twenty years, 9th July 1866. Description: Healthy appearance; present age, twenty-five years; 5 feet 71/2 inches high, black hair, brown eyes, oval visage, dark complexion; an Irishman. Absconded from convict road party, Bunburry, on the 18th of February, 1869." The man to whom O'Reilly owed his escape was a Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. Patrick McCabe, "whose parish," wrote O'Reilly ten years later, "extended over hundreds of miles of bush and whose only parishioners were convicts and ticket-of-leave men." One day O'Reilly confided to the priest his plans of escape. "It's an excellent way to commit suicide," said the priest. As the two men parted, however, he said to O'Reilly: "Let me think out a plan for you. You'll hear from me before long." Weeks and months O'Reilly waited. Then help came in the shape of a man named Maguire, who said: "I'm a friend of Father Mao's, and he's been speaking about you," whereupon the newcomer told O'Reilly that some American whalers were expected to touch at Bunburry in February. Two months later O'Reilly learned that the ships had arrived, and Maguire announced that he had arranged with the Captain of one of them, the Vigilant of New-Bedford, to take the fugitive off from a small boat. After the warden had visited his hut one night, O'Reilly slipped out, mounted a spare horse that Maguire had in waiting, and galloped to the shore, where a boat was waiting. When they met the Vigilant that ship declined to take O'Reilly aboard, and he was forced to put back to the island, where he lived for weeks in the woods, eating only opossums and rats. Three days later he put to sea again, believing that the ship was somewhere in waiting, but although he found her and approached her, again she passed on and left him. After that bitter disappointment O'Reilly put back to shore and slept nearly five days from sheer exhaustion. Finally Maguire came back with the good news that passage on another New-Bedford whaler, the Gazelle, Capt. Gifford, had been arranged. The next day O'Reilly put to sea again, and before night he was safe and sound on board the Gazelle. His subsequent narrow escape at the island of Roderique, when the Governor searched the ship for him, is by no means the least thrilling part of his adventures. Finally, off the Cape of Good Hope, Capt. Gifford transferred him to the American ship Sapphire, which took him safely to Liverpool, where he hid until a passage was secured for him to Philadelphia. Nov. 23, 1869, nine months after he made his first break for the Australian bush, O'Reilly landed in America, twenty-five years old, penniless and friendless. It is interesting to mark the steps of his rapid progress. From Philadelphia he came to New York, where he delivered two lectures and wrote several articles for the press. In 1870 he went to Boston, obtaining a position on the Pilot at a small salary. He now began to draw on his fund of poetic observation and experience, and to give to the world some of the treasures of thought and fancy garnered from the varied scenes of his eventful life. His poems were of a military character, and they received high renown in the Church and State magazine of the University of Oxford. In 1873 his first volume, "Songs of the Southern Seas," was published and dedicated to Capt. David R. Gifford, who had so nobly rescued the convict while struggling with his boat in the great expanse of the Indian Ocean. This volume excited widespread admiration. In 1874 O'Reilly succeeded in obtaining the ownership of the Pilot, and in connection with the Archbishop of Boston he assumed the $80,000 of debts of the former owner to depositors in the private bank, who were mostly of the poor class of Irish. His second volume of poems, "Songs, Legends, and Ballads," was published in 1878, and a year later he published the account of his escape from Australia, the ten years of his American life having removed all danger of inculpating the friends who risked so much in assisting him to freedom. In 1879 came the novel "moodyne (sic)," in 1881 the "Statues in the Block," and in 1886 "In Bohemia," each of which went through many editions. Mr. O'Reilly was a member of all the leading literary and artistic clubs of New-York and Boston, and he had been President of the Papyrus Club and the Boston Press Club. In 1873 he married Miss Mary Murphy of Charlestown, Mass., who, with four daughters, survives him. The rapid changes in life, and the hopes and fruitions in each of them, never seemed more significant than in those ten years of the life of John Boyle O'Reilly, in which time he was successively a private dragoon, penal convict, printer, reporter, lecturer, poet, and editor. Philadelphia, Aug. 10 - John Boyle O'Reilly had a host of friends in this city, who regarded him as the greatest leader and most brilliant mind among the Irish race in America. His journal was extensively read here, and was taken as a criterion on matters of Irish policy. The Rev. E. McMahon of the diocese of Clogher, Ireland, who is at present the guest of the Rev. Father Lane, pastor of St. Teresa's, said tonight: "I was well acquainted with John Boyle O'Reilly, and considered him the leading and most brilliant Irishman in America. He was a poet, a prose writer, a patriot, and a statesman. It was only this morning that I quoted a verse from him in my sermon. He was highly esteemed by Mr. Parnell and the Irish party, who looked on him as a leader of thought and judgment. His literary works and poems speak for themselves. He was a fervent and practical Catholic and had the respect and esteem of fellow-citizens who were not Catholics. His death will cast a gloom not only over his adopted city, but over the entire Irish race." The Rev. Hugh Lane said: "I have read his works and regarded him as a man of very brilliant talents. The Irish will sustain in him a great loss." James Sullivan, County Secretary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, said: "John Boyle O'Reilly was the greatest man the Irish had in this country." About one hundred members of the New Tipperary Club, who
were holding a meeting at Philopatrian Hall, discontinued business when they
heard of the death of the Irish poet. At Literary Institute, and the
other Catholic and Irish meeting places, the sudden death of John Boyle
O'Reilly was the general topic of conversation. |
| Source: the new york times |
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Though it lash the shallows that line the beach, Afar from the great sea-deeps, There is never a storm whose might can reach Where the vast leviathan sleeps. Like a mighty thought in a mighty mind In the clear cold depths he swims; Whilst above him the pettiest form of his kind With a dash o’er the surface skims. --- Prelude to the Amber Whale They who see the Flying Dutchman never, never reach the shore. Doubt is brother-devil to Despair. The world is large when weary leagues two loving hearts divide Be silent and safe—silence never betrays you. I ’d rather live in Bohemia
than in any other land. |
| Source: quotations in bartleby |
| A White Rose | |
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| The Poet and the Lord | |
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Poet, journalist, and Irish patriot John Boyle O'Reilly (1844-1890) led
a life as adventurous and dangerous as any fictional hero. This vivid and
meticulously researched biography traces O'Reilly's colorful story from
his youth in Ireland, through his imprisonment in Australia, to his years
in Boston. Found guilty of seditious acts against the crown for his Fenian
activities in Ireland, O'Reilly was transported on a convict ship to
Fremantle, Australia, in 1867. Against daunting odds, he made a daring
escape from the penal colony, boarded an American whaler, and eventually
reached Boston, where he became a successful newspaper editor at the
Boston Pilot and revered champion for Irish immigrants and racial
minorities. An important leader in Boston's civic and cultural affairs,
O'Reilly also played a key role in planning the now legendary escape of
six other Fenians from Fremantle Prison. In addition to recounting
O'Reilly's extraordinary and sometimes near-disastrous adventures, A. G.
Evans thoroughly examines the influences that formed the headstrong
patriotism of his youth and marked his progress toward maturity. He also
shows how O'Reilly's poetry and fictional work -- some of which have only
recently been discovered -- reflect his complex life story and illuminate
his fascinating character. Fanatic Heart is a comprehensive biography of a
remarkable man who made significant and long-lasting contributions to
literature, civil rights, and the Irish republican cause.
Source: addall.com book service |
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A dissertation "Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
Arts and Sciences of The Catholic University of America in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of
Philosophy."
"The present study traces the activities of John Boyle O'Reilly during his years in the United States in relation to his fellow Irish-Americans as well as to those in the mother country who were leading the fight to refashion the political, economic, and social life of Ireland."
(First publication in book form, 1976, by Arno Press, Inc. |
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The story of O'Reilly's life written by a friend with the aid of Mrs. O'Reilly. Also, a collection of O'Reilly's writings. The author attempted "to draw a faithful picture of John Boyle O'Reilly as he was in public and private" and "aimed to present . . . the leading events in a career as full of dramatic incident and striking change as the pages of a romance; letting the story tell itself, wherever it has been possible, in the words of its illustrious subject." (from the preface). | ||||||||||
| "the world is brighter for having possessed him, and mankind will be the better for this treasury of pure and generous and noble thoughts which he has left us in his works." --- Introduction (page viii) By His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, October 13th, 1890. |
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"The great patriot John Boyle O'Reilly performed heroic acts in
his native Ireland and in his adopted home, the U.S. O'Reilly was a
man whose exciting exploits thrilled his followers and vexed his
captors." (from the table of contents) |
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This is the story of how Irish men and women came to be dispersed all over the world, and what they made of their lives in their new homes. It is the epic history of a whole people. It offers a sharp description of the first convict settlers' lives and the terrible hardships they endured and includes the spellbinding story of John Boyle O'Reilly's amazing escape from Western Australia on board the Gazelle. | ||||||||||
| "Keneally breathes life and warmth into his Irish heroes . . . The Great Shame is an epic tale of courage and ingenuity." --- The New York Times Book Review, Jay P. Dolan |
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The history of the birth of Australia which came out of the suffering and brutality of England's infamous convict transportation system. For 80 years between 1788 and 1868, England transported its convicts to Australia. This punishment provided the first immigrants and the work force to build the colony. Using diaries, letters, and original sources, Hughes meticulously documents this history. All sides of the story are told: the political and social reasoning behind the Transportation System, the viewpoint of the captains who had the difficult job of governing and developing the colonies, and of course the dilemma of the prisoners. | ||||||||||
| "a brilliant and enduring achievement . . . history of the highest order combining thorough research with vivid narrative and thoughtful assessment." --- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. |
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a novel relating the conditions of the convicts in Fremantle . . . "the chain gang of Fremantle is the depth of the penal degradation. the convicts wear from thirty to fifty pounds of iron, according to the offence. it is riveted on their bodies in the prison forge and when they have served their time the great rings have to be chiselled off their calloused limbs." | ||||||||||
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"Songs of the Southern Seas" (Boston, 1873);" Songs, Legends, and Ballads" (1878); "Statues in the Block" (1881) ; and "In Bohemia" (1886); "The Country with a Roof," an allegory dealing with certain faults in the American social system, "The Evolution of Straight Weapons and a work on the material resources of Ireland. | ||||||||||
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In 1836, Patrick Donahoe published the first edition of his newspaper, The Pilot. It was to become the most influential Catholic newspaper in the US, and remains to this day, America’s oldest Catholic newspaper. It catered to the interests of Irish American Catholics, many of whom had fled to the US to escape the horrors of the Great Famine. In 1876, O'Reilly and Archbishop Williams purchased the paper. O’Reilly served as editor of The Pilot from 1870 until his death in 1890. | ||||||||||
| Van Diemen's Land | ||||||||||||||
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hold me now, hold me now till this hour has gone around and i'm gone on the rising tide for to face van diemen's land it's a bitter pill i swallow here now kings will rule and the poor will toil hold me now, hold me now still the gunman rules and widows pay |
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| Album Notes | Interpretation | ||
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"Van Diemen's Land" is a haunting song. In my mind, I see british soldiers approaching a home in the dark of dawn, carrying guns and shackles, ready to take a man away from everything he has known, to take him to a hell half a world away. And in that home, I see O'Reilly holding his family in the dark, knowing in his heart that this is the last time he would ever see them . . . Although included in the album notes, the last verse in the song ("still the gunman rules . . . out of death bring forth a life") can not actually be heard on the album. It was left off the recording for political reasons. According to one source, U2 feared that the IRA would bomb one of their concerts if it was included. Another source states that "The black beret is recognized (sic) a symbol of the Irish Republican Army, particularly since the photos of IRA mourners at the funeral of hunger striker Bobby Sands (which may tie into the very pregnant final line). However, I believe British soldiers in Northern Ireland also wear black berets. The "scarlet coat" I am less sure of – perhaps a reference to the British "red coats"? Red is a colour associated with Loyalists as well, but I need to research this further as I (sic) struck by the possibility that perhaps a scarlet coat had some parallel in the Fenian funeral of (sic)." In any case, it is odd that U2, in the album notes, humorously
suggests that O'Reilly was shipped out because of 'bad poetry.'
Instead, as the song itself states, he "fought for justice"
and for that he was sent to Australia. |
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| Reviews & Notes | |
| "a feast of
traditional Irish music" --- Billboard, 20 January 1996 "a richly varied work with a
selection of material both lyrical and diverse" Sean Tyrrell’s discovery of "1,000 Years of Irish Poetry" in a Boston "lace curtain Irish music shop" has inspired him to create (sic) most memorable songs. The outstanding example of this is the "Peace Trilogy" – "Message of Peace", "Cry of a Dreamer", and "Only From Day to Day", written by the 19th Century Irish poet John Boyle O’Reilly. It is impossible to listen to these dramatic pleas against tyranny, oppression and mans (sic) brutality without reflecting on their very poignant relevance to today’s situation in Ireland. The power of John Boyle O’Reilly’s lyrics are reinforced by three changes of tempo which neatly define each of the songs while making each logical step from its predecessor . . . In conclusion this is without doubt the best new album I have heard this year and it will take something very special to beat it. "Cry of a Dreamer" works on so many different levels it sometimes overwhelms you but the pleasure of slowly unravelling (sic) the mysteries is unparalleled. Take my advice and dip into the Aladdin’s cave that is Sean Tyrrell’s "Cry of a Dreamer" and remember: |
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"A Dreamer he’ll
live forever, |
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| --- The Living Tradition, (undated) | |
The whole thing is unmistakeably (sic) Irish, but there are enough turns and twists along the way to upgrade it into the highest echelons of Irish acoustic music . . . Any doubts about his pedigree are blown completely out of the water by the trilogy of Message Of Peace, Cry Of A Dreamer and Only From Day To Day – written in the 19th century by John Boyle O’Reilly – which is both shrewdly conceived and boldly provocative in its simplicity. --- Folk Roots, August/September 1994 "music for people who
have love and lost and won; who have taken the wrong and the right road,
and every path in between; people who have left home only to return
heartbroken then to leave again stronger than ever. It is art for
all those who have lived nine lives and feel they deserve a tenth . . .
it is best to return to that short poem of John Boyle O’Reilly’s
quoted on the inner sleeve . . . to give the predominant tone of the
kind of rare gem Sean Tyrrell has sculpted. It goes like this:
"Life is a certainty/Death is a doubt/ Men may e (sic) dead/When
they are walking about/Love is as needful/To being as breath/Loving is
dreaming/And waking is death." (JBO’R). |
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| Source: cry of a dreamer | |
