Part I
Old Limerick! Your ancient name evokes memories of joyful times,
Of youth, peace, and dreams amid your intertwining bowers’ chimes.
Gazing back through evening’s gloom at King John’s historic towers,
Enraptured by the Shannon’s whisper, nature’s sweet lullaby empowers.
Curraghour, Treaty Stone, and bridges of ghostly fame,
The Castle, Abbey, and Old Town forever linked to Sarsfield’s name.
Cathedral chimes, their peals magnetic, drawing crowds from afar,
To hear their solemn knell of peace, reverberating like a star.
Part II
In your besieged walls, song and mirth once filled the air,
Grace and beauty coalesced in homes both humble and fair.
Supreme happiness within your peaceful embrace,
Where people owed allegiance to God, their sole embrace.
Pilgrims sought your famed scholastic shrine in earnest prayer,
Your motley army once faced William’s horsemen line to line.
Great men cradled here, leaving footprints on Time’s sands,
Casting their genius’ light to farthest, undiscovered lands.
Part III
Yet Father Time intervened, ushering in an age anew,
Limerick’s proud historic fame now fading from view.
Uninterested civic power casts a gloom, draws a pall,
Erasing reverential landmarks, antiquity’s rise and fall.
Protect the sacred Treaty Stone from destruction’s hand,
Extend protection to Garryowen’s crumbled wall, our land.
Preserve the few spots left, their ideal grandeur undisturbed,
Limerick’s bold relief, history’s beacon, forever cherished and observed.
— James Creagh, Irish Guards, London, ’05.
Limerick Echo – Tuesday 22 August 1905
