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The Tinkerman's Daughter
Photo: Donal Sheehan
The wee birds were lining the bleak autumn branches
Waiting to fly to a far sunny shore
When the tinkers made camp at a bend on the river
Coming back from the horse-fair in Ballinasloe
The harvest being over the farmer came walking
Along the Feale River that bordered his land
'Twas there he first saw her 'twixt firelight and water
The tinkerman's daughter, the red-headed Ann
Next morning he woke from a night without resting
He went to her father, he made his claim known
In a pub in Listowel they worked out a bargain
For the tinker a pony, for the daughter a home
Where the trees shed their shadows along the Feale River
The tinker and the farmer inspected the land
And a white gelding pony was the price they agreed on
For the tinkerman's daughter, the red-headed Ann
With the wedding soon over the tinkers departed
They're eager to travel on south down the road
The crunch of their iron-shod wheels on the gravel
Was as bitter to her as the way she'd been sold
She tried hard to please him, she did all his bidding
She slept in his bed and she worked on the land
But the walls of that cabin pressed tighter and tighter
On the tinkerman's daughter, the red-headed Ann
White as the hands of the priest or the hangman
The snow spread its blanket the next Christmas round
The tinkerman's daughter slipped out of his bedside
Turned her back on the land and her face to the town
It's said someone saw her at dusk that same evening
As she made her way out o'er Likelycompane
And that was the last time the settled folk saw her
The tinkerman's daughter, the red-headed Ann
Where the North Kerry hills cup the Feale o'er Listowel
At a farm on its banks lives a bitter old man
He swears by the shotgun he keeps at his bedside
He'll kill any tinker that camps on his land
Whenever he hears iron-shod wheels on gravel
Or a horse in the shafts of a bright caravan
Then his day's work's tormented, his night sleep's demented
By the tinkerman's daughter, the red-headed Ann
Micheal McConnell
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Oh the gypsies are rascals aren't theY? I love this poem tell a good story. I have gypsy pics also. I love their wagons. http:journals.aol.com/carolhe
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Lovely poem and lovely photograph. How romantic those caravans are, would love a trip in one of them. Still to those that live in them they are just "home"
01/09/04 10:18