A Ballad of Rural Savagery

The following ballad was written by Martin Scanlon, formerly a resident of Tellaghawn Duff in North Mayo. Sadly, Martin died several years ago in 2000 but in life, he was well known by his neighbours for his sharp eye, his sharper tongue and his unhealthy preoccupation with books.

This poem was written as a satire on his neighbours who took part in a savage attack on another local man who’d returned home after retiring from the British Army. The incident described in this poem took place on the same stretch of coastline where the fictitious (but equally lawless) ‘Playboy of the Western World’ was set just a few years earlier.

After Martin's death, this poem was found among his papers.

This is a ballad that was meant to be performed and listened to, rather than read and would probably have changed in the telling. It is a poignant glimpse of an oral tradition of rural house-visiting; where neighbours would gather at an appointed cottage and all were expected to have a song, story or poem ready for recitation.

It could get quite competitive and often made for a great night but that 'one in, all in' aspect of these social gatherings would also have been at the dark heart of the eponymous Attack on Stokes.

The Attack on Stokes (Spring 1937)

Pat Stokes became a Tommy

And after he left his Mammy,

He went soldiering far away.

On hills and plains, neath monsoon rains

From Khyber to Mandalay

Though tender of years,

He overcame great fears

In that wild and wondrous land

Where Eagles soar and tigers roar

And the teaks in their glory stand

But that was far from the stones

That broke his bones

On a lone and later day

When the mob come out with a mighty shout

And the law of the Jungle held sway

On that day of sorrows, on that day of fears

With its burning black hate

And its crocodile tears

He was battered and beaten like a twig in the surf

Stoned like a martyr for a few sods of turf

Troth, we saw his blood seep

From wounds keen and deep

But mercy they weren’t for showing

The aged soldier ran for cover

And the stones they kept on throwing

Stokes faltered and stumbled,

Then staggered and tumbled

And finally, he crawled and he wept

In the grim skies above, but still nearer God’s love

He heard a sweet lark singing

And hush, beyond the heathered hill, was that a Church bell ringing?

Felled like a bullock, Stokes bled on the ground

Pleased with their work, his tormentors stood round

In from the west, a bitter breeze had stolen,

All the while they hammered on,

In the deep boggy bay, the black tide had swollen.

Oh I still hear his groans,

See those bone-breaking stones

And I still see the stains of his tears

That fear in his face, that awful disgrace

They haunt me now for years

Like the west winds that roar

Or the wild waves on the shore

That grind like an angry mill

The thoughts of that day

And the mob’s cruel affray

Are Furies beyond my will

Did he think of his comrades dying

With vultures above them flying

On those mighty Burmese Crags

To escape the pain, when the blows fell like rain

At home in that place of rags?

But the Lord of Creation (being the Lord of Salvation)

He’s forgiven that awful crime

We hope for redemption

And rely on the assumption

That all wounds heal over time

Well, time has moved on

And now that they’ve gone

To the home of the Lord I pray

It’s now that they’ll know

In that heavenly glow

The madness of that bleak day

Whilst we that remain,

Midst the mist and the rain

A terrible burden must shoulder

When we look at those bogs

Through memories’ fogs

We still see the attack on the soldier

By Martin Scanlon, Tellaghawn Duff, 50 years on...