The Hackler From Grouse Hall

Peter Smith

I am a roving hackler lad that loves the shamrock shore
My name is Pat McDonnell and my age is eighty-four
Belov’d and well-respected by my neighbors one and all
In sweet Stradone I am well known by Lavey and Grouse Hall

When I was young I danced and sung and I drank good whiskey too
In a síbín shop that sold the drop of the real old mountain dew
With the poitín still on every hill the peelers had to call
In sweet Stradone I am well known round Lavey and Grouse Hall

I rambled around from town to town for hackling was me trade
None can deny I think that I an honest living made
Where e’er I’d stay by night or day the youth would always call
For to have some crack with Paddy Jack, the hackler from Grouse Hall

I think it strange how times have changed so very much of late
Coercion now is all the row with Peelers on their bate
To take a glass is now, alas, the greatest crime of all
Since Balfour placed that hungry beast, the Sergeant of Grouse Hall

This busy tool of Castle rule he travels night and day
He’ll seize a goat just by the throat for want of better prey
The nasty skunk, he’ll swear you’re drunk tho’ you didn’t drink any at all
Sire there is no peace around the place since he came to Grouse Hall

‘Twas on pretense of this offense he dragged me off to jail
Alone to dwell in a cold cell my fate for to bewail
My hoary head on a wooden bed, such wrongs for vengeance call
Sure he’ll rue the day he dragged away the hackler from Grouse Hall

Down into hell he’d run pell-mell to hunt for poitín there
And won’t be loath to swear an oath that he found it in Killinkere
He’ll search your bed from foot to head, sheets, blankets, ticks and all
Your wife, undressed, must leave the nest for Jemmy of Grouse Hall

He fixed a plan for that poor man who had a handsome wife
To take away without delay her liberty and life
He’d swear quite plain that you’re insane, that you’ve got no sense at all
As he has done of late with one convenient to Grouse Hall

His raids on dogs I’m sure it flogs, it’s shocking to behold
He’ll pull up a six month’s pup and swear it’s two year-old
Outside of hell no parallel can be found for him at all
For that vile pimp, the devil’s imp, the ruler of Grouse Hall

Thank God the day’s not far away when Home Rule will be seen
And brave Parnell at home will dwell and shine in College Green
Our policemen will all be then our nation’s choice and all
Old Balfour’s pack will get the sack and be banished from Grouse Hall

Let old and young clear up their lungs and sing this little song
Come join with me and let him see you all resent the wrong
And while I live I’ll always give a prayer for his downfall
And when I die I don’t deny that I’ll haunt him from Grouse hall

“The Hackler from Grouse Hall” is a song from the Sliabh Guaire area of Cavan, Ireland, about an overzealous R.I.C. sergeant who pursued an aging hackler with a fondness for Poitín.

The song was written in the late 1880s by a local man, Peter Smith, from Stravicnabo, Lavey. (In Colm Ó Lochlainn’s “More Irish Street Ballads” 1965, it is incorrectly attributed as having been written in the 1870s).

An aging hackler, Pat Mac Donnell, “Paddy Jack” was pursued and arrested by a sergeant who had come to Grouse Hall. The hackler may have been Pat Mac Donnell. Hackling, of which Mac Donnell was a roving practitioner, was the final process in preparing flax for spinning into linen. Prior to the industry becoming mechanised and moving to East Ulster it was a rural based cottage industry with Cootehill as Ulster’s largest market.

The sergeant was James Mullervy, born in Derawaley, Drumlish, Longford who joined the R.I.C. (Royal Irish Constabulary) in 1872 and was appointed sergeant in Grouse Hall in 1890. He retired in 1898 and returned to Derawaley where he married, raised a family and where his descendants live today.

The song makes use of the traditional Irish internal rhyme:

Down into hell he’d run pell-mell to hunt for poitín there
And won’t be loath to swear an oath ’twas found in Killinkere