“The Croppy Boy”, a monument in Tralee, County Kerry. Created by Kglavin, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley…
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp…
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
A people hardly marching… on the hike…
We found new tactics happening each day:
We’d cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until… on Vinegar Hill… the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August… the barley grew up out of our grave.
by Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)
This poem is about the Battle of Vinegar Hill which took place outside Enniscorthy in County Wexford on 21st June 1798. It was part of the Rebellion of the United Irishmen. The term “croppy” refers to the short cropped hair worn by the rebels, most of whom went into battle carrying only pikes against the artillery and muskets of the crown forces. The battle was a heavy defeat for the United Irishmen over a thousand of whom were killed in what Heaney calls the “final conclave” where the last hopes for the rebellion to succeed were finally crushed. The poem’s final line depicts the barley in the pockets of dead rebels growing through the soil used to bury them, suggesting that the dream of independence might would live on.
