The Ballad of D. D. Sheehan

The Ballad of D. D. Sheehan by Daniel Desmond Sheehan

• THE BALLAD OF D. D. SHEEHAN
  by D. D. Sheehan BL MP
  An election broadsheet composed to promote Sheehan as candidate on the occasion of both
  the January 1910 and the December 1910 general elections in Ireland. It was published in the Cork Accent newspaper 28 January 1910.

Men of mid-Cork prepare yourself before it is too late

And prove to Josie Devlin that you will not tolerate

To be represented by a henchman of his choice

But send him back from where he came in no uncertain voice.

Say who is Billy Fallon or who heard of him before

From the village of Kilmichael to the cross at Donaghmore

Or far famed Ballingeary all over dell and glen

By the River Lee to Inniscarra where brave Mackey drilled his men.

When the sheriff and his agent and the burly peelers came

To hunt you from your homesteads in the King of England's name

Who was foremost in the struggle to stop that hellish work

But the gallant D. D. Sheehan ever member for mid-Cork.

Who negotiated purchase and secured you in your land

Free forever from the bailiff or the cruel eviction band

And brought joy and consolation to your children and your wives

Which they ever will remember to the finish of their lives.

Who obtained commodious dwellings for the hardy sons of toil

Not alone in this division but throughout the Holy Isle

For that very Act of Parliament would never see the loom

But for Mr. D. D. Sheehan and O'Brien at Macroom.

And will you now abandon him and let yourself be fooled

By that milk and water turncoat whose known as Dr. Goold

Or that sanctimonious auctioneer, that hypocrite jereen

The likes of which our county Cork had better never seen.

Shout it back to Josie Devlin and his standing committee

To the laity and the clergy of every degree

That no power can damp your gratitude that burns in your souls

When you boldly vote for Sheehan and elect him at the poles.

Epilogue:

Mid-Cork sent its answer right back to the mob

With that young fellow Fallon who was seeking the job

That they wanted no Mollie to be their MP

They had what they wanted, and that was D. D.

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