Michael McGuiness (1835-1901)

It was with the smoked Irish in Chandler* I lived alone in a shack by the railway

but I come from the shadow of the Wicklow mountains and the pikemen of ‘98.

I fought four bloody year in your bleeding Civil War.

We were the Fighting Irish, all we'd ever owned was war,

we toughened our hide under the the British boot—did it three hundred year.

They wanted to slave us like the shades in the South,

wanted us to wear the fecking yoke of bondage.

America should be the land where no man has to bow

but passing through New York and Chicago,

were signs that says "No dogs or Irishmen.”

With the Illini went down to Dixieland, saw the black folk,

rags and tatters, shoeless, hungry, like the Old Country. 

That's what we had faith in, the doing of it, divil a bit of God. Sod God, the Fenians said. 

I fought with the 16th Illinois and then the 60th,

powder burned me face, me eyes went bad.

In Kansas broke sod and split stone to build the railway,

rail-laying Irish like meself and former slaves, 

stopping our gob with Chinese grub.

In the 90s lollygagged in a Vets Home in Kansas but too many rules.

Came to Chandler looking for land but was too old to bust sod,

got an invalid pension of $12 a month, sent it to me darling Jennie.

Folk laughed at me cause whenever I went to town

I carried all my ruck on my back, never knowing if I'd return.

To the bivouac of the dead went I and the G. A. R. paid a dollar for me plot.

The newspaper called me a harmless old man 

and said my lonely death had touched many folk 

too busy during my life to give a damn.

Ah shur and that was the grandest thing anybody every wrote.

* Michael McGuiness is buried in Wright Cemetery, Chandler OK.