Ethna Carbery, born Anna Bella Johnston, was an Irish journalist, writer and poet. She is best known for writing the poem and song “Roddy McCorley”, and the “Song of Ciabhán”; the latter was set to music by Ivor Gurney. In Belfast in the late 1890s, with Alice Milligan she produced The Shan Van Vocht, a nationalist monthly of literature, history and comment that gained a wide circulation in Ireland and in the Irish diaspora. Her poetry was collected and published after her death under the pen name Ethna Carbery, adopted following her marriage to the poet Seumas MacManus in 1901.
Roddy McCorley
The traditional Irish ballad “Roddy McCorley” tells the tragic story of a young rebel marching to his execution on the bridge of Toome during the aftermath of the 1798 Irish Rebellion. Written in the 1890s by the nationalist poet Ethna Carbery (Anna Johnston), the song romanticizes martyrdom, Irish nationalism, and resistance against British rule.
Rody M’corley by Ethna Carbery
Melody
The melody for Roddy McCorley was later used in the song, Sean South from Garryowen, which tells the story of a failed IRA attack on a Royal Ulster Constabulary Barracks in County Fermanagh in 1957.
Lyrics
Oh, see the fleet-foot hosts of men who speed with faces wan,
From farmstead and from thresher’s cot along the banks of Ban.
They come with vengeance in their eyes; too late, too late are they,
For young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.
Oh Ireland, Mother Ireland, you love them still the best,
The fearless brave who fighting fall upon your hapless breast.
But never a one of all your dead more bravely fell in fray,
Than he who marches to his fate on the bridge of Toome today.
Up the narrow street he stepped, so smiling, proud and young,
About the hemp-rope on his neck, the golden ringlets clung;
There’s ne’er a tear in his blue eyes, fearless and brave are they,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.
When last this narrow street he trod, his shining pike in hand,
Behind him marched, in grim array, a earnest stalwart band.
To Antrim town! To Antrim town, he led them to the fray,
But young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.
The grey coat and its sash of green were brave and stainless then,
A banner flashed beneath the sun over the marching men;
The coat hath many a rent this noon, the sash is torn away,
And Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.
Oh, how his pike flashed in the sun! Then found a foeman’s heart,
Through furious fight, and heavy odds he bore a true man’s part.
And many a red-coat bit the dust before his keen pike-play,
But Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.
There’s never a one of all your dead more bravely died in fray
Than he who marches to his fate in Toomebridge town today;
True to the last! True to the last, he treads the upwards way,
And young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.
Writer
Ethna Carbery
Date: 1898
Rody M’corley by Ethna Carbery
Roddy McCorley - Clancy Brothers
