Egan O'Rahilly Quotes

Egan O'Rahilly: 2 quotes0 likes

“For the future I cease, Death approaches with little delay,
Since the dragons of Laune and Lane and Lee are destroyed;
I’ll follow the heroes far from the light of day,
The princes my ancestors followed before Christ died.”

Egan O'Rahilly

Closing lines of his last known poem (c.1729)
Translated from the Irish by Owen Dudley Edwards, as quoted in Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations (2005), p. 626

“That my old bitter heart was pierced in this black doom,
That foreign devils have made our land a tomb,
That the sun that was Munster's glory has gone down
Has made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.”

Egan O'Rahilly

"Valentine Brown", as quoted in An Anthology of Irish Literature (1954), p. 239
Variant translation:
Because all night my mind inclines to wander and to rave,
Because the English dogs have made Ireland a green grave,
Because all of Munster's glory is daily trampled down,
I have traveled far to meet you, Valentine Brown.