The Gathering of the Tribes – 1907

Western People 29th June, 1907 p 9

The Gathering of the Tribes
Lines on the Grand Annual Reunion and Games of the Galway Men’s Association at Celtic Park, New York, Sunday 9th June, 1907

Dear Galway of gray cliff and shelving shore,
Today your exiled hosts pass in review;
Today with eager hearts they meet once more
Beneath Columbia’s skies of sunny blue.
How yearning souls today will fill with pride
For Erin cradled ‘mid Atlantic foam;
Where e’er we journey or what e’er betide,
With Irish fervour we are true to home.

From Tuam they’ll come where the great McHale
‘Gainst the tyrant Saxon truth’s gauntlet flung,
He kept the glory of bright Innisfail
Resplendent burning in the Gaelic tongue.
Today his memory is revered with pride
Through Eire’s valleys from strand to strand;
And we far sunder’d over ocean-wide,
Are true to Galway and dear Ireland.

Loughrea and Gort will give a generous share,
Where Sassenach a welcome never found,
My must to Arran flies with fleetness rare
On reverent wing to fight on holy ground.
And bouchals tall will come from Corrib’s wave;
Where hamlets nestle by the waters blue,
From Clifden’s hills that never nurst a slave,
Nor grudge their exiles, fearless bold and true.

From green Killimer and Kinvara gray,
Whose legends tell us of olden time,
When noble Ard-Reigh ruled in regal sway,
And Fionn of Fenian hoses was chief sublime;
His spirit true has lived the ages down
And flames to fire within our exiled throng,
Tho’ far apart from Galway storied town,
Or from the value where stands the Cross of Cong.

Sweet mother of brown hill and Em’rald vale!
Thine exiled hosts today pass in review;
True as their sires when foes they name assail
Their filian hearts beat faithful unto you.
True Irishman where’er your homing place,
From Cork’s famed town to Neagh’s wide-spreading lake,
Come pledge with us the gallant fighting race,
One bumper drink, fill high – The West’s Awake!

Stephen M. Faherty