The O'Rahilly
About the text
Yeats first published this poem in 1938. It is out of copyright in Ireland and the EU, but in the United States it stays in copyright until the start of 2034, and this site is served partly from American servers. So for now we give the notes without the full text; it will appear here in 2034.
It begins: Sing of the O'Rahilly
In brief
SummaryA ballad for the O'Rahilly, who opposed the Rising, then died in it.
A ballad in praise of the O'Rahilly, one of the leaders of the Irish Volunteers, who was killed in the Easter Rising of 1916. The first stanza defends his claim to the "the" before his name, a Gaelic chief's title, saying he earned it for good in his own blood. The second tells how he had worked to keep the Kerry men out of the fight, yet travelled half the night to be there himself. The third gives his proud words to Pearse and Connolly, and the fourth his death in a doorway off Henry Street. Each stanza ends with a strange, offhand refrain about the weather.
Lines to remember
Because I helped to wind the clock
Line by line
Lines 1 to 9The title in blood
Sing of the O'Rahilly and allow him the "the" before his name, whatever the learned historians say. The poem claims he settled the question himself: he wrote the word out and christened himself with blood, a phrase that looks forward to the last stanza.
Lines 10 to 18Half the night travelling
With affectionate irony the ballad calls him a man of little sense. He told Pearse and Connolly that he had gone to great expense to keep the Kerry men out of "that crazy fight", yet he had travelled half the night so that he could be in it himself.
Lines 19 to 27Winding the clock
He speaks for himself, angry that he might have been left to hear of the Rising second-hand from some travelling man. Fixing Pearse and Connolly with a bitter look, he gives his reason for coming: having helped to wind the clock, he has come to hear it strike.
Lines 28 to 36Writ in blood
Only his death remains to sing of: stretched under a doorway somewhere off Henry Street. Those who found him saw his own epitaph written in blood on the door above his head. The blood-written name completes the promise of the first stanza.
Themes
Heroism and loyalty
The O'Rahilly opposed the timing of the Rising, yet would not stay away from it. The poem honours that choice: loyalty to the cause and to his comrades over his own judgement. His line about winding the clock makes the rebellion something he had helped build and so had a right to see.
Names and memory
The ballad begins with a quarrel over a single word, the "the" of a clan chief's title, and ends with his name written in his blood. Historians may argue, but the song insists that he established his title by his death. Singing becomes a way of settling the record.
The ballad voice
The refrain "How goes the weather?" seems to have nothing to do with the story. Its casual tone works like the chorus of a street song, and it also carries a hint of the talk that goes on while great events pass by. The ordinary question makes the heroism stand out.
Context
First published in New Poems (Cuala Press, Dublin, 1938). Michael Joseph O'Rahilly, known as The O'Rahilly, was a Kerry man and a founder of the Irish Volunteers. When the Volunteers' leadership called off the planned rising, he helped carry the order around the country, but on Easter Monday 1916 he joined the rebels in the General Post Office.
He was killed on the Friday of Easter Week while leading a charge from the burning Post Office, and died in a lane off Moore Street, near Henry Street. The poem is one of several late ballads in which Yeats returned to 1916 and its leaders, twenty years after "Easter, 1916".
Form
Four stanzas of nine lines: eight short lines of three or four beats, rhyming on alternate lines (often half rhymes, such as "look" and "strike"), followed by the refrain. The plain diction and the question-refrain are those of the street ballad, which suits a poem meant to be sung in praise of a popular hero.
