I wrote it the day after I met Mr. Crimmins; and this is how I wrote it:
I promised, in a late issue of the United Irishmen, to tell something about my entertainment, a night I spent shanachiechting with Father Tom Crimmins at his home. Some nights before that, I met him at a “wake” at Mr. Donegan’s house; he told me so many things about old times in Ireland, and old times in America—historical things I may say, which I did not know, and which you do not now know—that I got very much interested in the information I was getting from him. For instance: there are those monuments in St. Paul’s churchyard, near the Post Office, erected to the memory of Emmet and McNevin, of the United Irishmen of 1798—it was a surprise to me to hear him tell me that those men are not buried in that churchyard at all; that Dr. McNevin is buried in Newtown, Long Island; and Thomas Addis Emmet is buried in that graveyard in Second Street, Second Avenue, New York.
I often in the pages of this paper, in writing about Decoration day, spoke of “the graves of Emmet and McNevin in St. Paul’s churchyard”; and, as a matter of course, must have often misled my readers. So, it becomes a matter of duty now with me to lead them right, by giving them Father Crimmins’ story. I met his son, John D. Crimmins; I asked him did he know what his father was telling me—that Emmet and McNevin were not buried in St. Paul’s churchyard? “Why, of course, yes,” said he; “in my young days my father often took me with him to Newtown to decorate the graves of McNevin and Sampson; and to Second street, to decorate the grave of Thomas Addis Emmet. You see monuments of respect and commemoration erected in the city to General Grant, Horace Greeley, Charles O’Connor and other famous men; perhaps it was with a feeling of more solemn respect for the memory of the dead, that the men of the preceding generations erected their monuments in the graveyards of the city, instead of in the public thoroughfares.”
I went to Thomas Crimmins’ house for the special purpose of taking from him, an elegy in the Irish language, that he had by heart, on the death of an uncle of his, Daniel Barry, who was killed by a fall from his horse at a fair in Dromcolloher in the beginning of this century. I think it is best for me to let you see these Irish lines, before I say any more; and, as I want you to understand them thoroughly, and want to help you to read Irish, I will make an English translation of them, and place them side by side with the original.
The name of the poet was James O’Connell; he was a weaver by trade, and—after the name of his trade—was called Shemus Fighdeora. He was learned in the Irish language, but was unlearned in any other. His poem looks to me more like a “caoin” that would be made over the dead man’s body at the wake-house, than anything else; because, here and there, one verse is spoken as if addressing the corpse, and the next verse as if addressing the mourners around. These are the verses:
BAAS DONAL A BARRA.
Is dubhach an sgeul ata le ’n innsint,
Idir gall a’s gael, air gach taobh da m-bid siad,
An fear muinte, beasach, leigheanta, bhi ’guin,
Air maidin ’na slainte; air clar a’s’ t-oidhche.