SAINT OF THE SEVERED ISLE

(ST. OLIVER PLUNKETT CANONISED 1975)

FEAST DAY JULY 1

Betrayed was he,

His own compatriots turned Iscariot!  --

Irish Iscariots who touched,

With pointed fingers of untruth,

That inexorable wheel of treachery

To be hanged, drawn and quartered,

Fashion of the day.

Earlier had he been a scholar,

But a graduate first in love of God and man;

Archbishop he, leader guide, -- exemplary;

Yet a man so poor he’d seen,

Through the broken thatch his shelter,

The stare of those islands’ cold stars;

A fugitive, the time of testing come,

No hireling he

But a true son.

His own Gethsemane he found to be

Shouldered by the Christ

And calm was he

As a cowled and cloistered monk,

Forgiveness his matins,

Tyburn his monastery; --

At a final call

“Deo Gratias” said he,

That particular ignominy

His entry into joy.

Fay Clayton