21.8.04
From MICHAEL COLLINS & THE TROUBLES by Ulick O’ Connor:
“Michael Collins has had many names of endearment attached to him by his people. But perhaps the most appropriate is that bestowed on him by Brendan Behan’s mother Kathleen when she named Michael Collins ‘My Laughing Boy’.” He had helped her when her own husband was in prison for IRA activities. Her son Brendan, born in1923, “was much taken with his mother’s talk of ‘Mick’ Collins” and wrote this ballad in tribute:
The Laughing Boy
by Brendan Behan
T'was on an August morning, all in the dawning hours,
I went to take the warming air, all in the Mouth of Flowers,
And there I saw a maiden, and mournful was her cry,
'Ah what will mend my broken heart, I've lost my Laughing Boy.
So strong, so wild and brave he was, I'll mourn his loss too sore,
When thinking that I'll hear the laugh or springing step no more.
Ah, cure the times and sad the loss my heart to crucify,
That an irish son with a rebel gun shot down my Laughing Boy.
Oh had he died by Pearse's side or in the GPO,
Killed by an English bullet from the rifle of the foe,
Or forcibly fed with Ashe lay dead in the dungeons of Mountjoy,
I'd have cried with pride for the way he died, my own dear Laughing Boy.
My princely love, can ageless love do more than tell to you,
Go raibh maith agat for all you tried to do,
For all you did, and would have done, my enemies to destroy,
I'll mourn your name and praise your fame, forever, my Laughing Boy.
“Michael Collins has had many names of endearment attached to him by his people. But perhaps the most appropriate is that bestowed on him by Brendan Behan’s mother Kathleen when she named Michael Collins ‘My Laughing Boy’.” He had helped her when her own husband was in prison for IRA activities. Her son Brendan, born in1923, “was much taken with his mother’s talk of ‘Mick’ Collins” and wrote this ballad in tribute:
The Laughing Boy
by Brendan Behan
T'was on an August morning, all in the dawning hours,
I went to take the warming air, all in the Mouth of Flowers,
And there I saw a maiden, and mournful was her cry,
'Ah what will mend my broken heart, I've lost my Laughing Boy.
So strong, so wild and brave he was, I'll mourn his loss too sore,
When thinking that I'll hear the laugh or springing step no more.
Ah, cure the times and sad the loss my heart to crucify,
That an irish son with a rebel gun shot down my Laughing Boy.
Oh had he died by Pearse's side or in the GPO,
Killed by an English bullet from the rifle of the foe,
Or forcibly fed with Ashe lay dead in the dungeons of Mountjoy,
I'd have cried with pride for the way he died, my own dear Laughing Boy.
My princely love, can ageless love do more than tell to you,
Go raibh maith agat for all you tried to do,
For all you did, and would have done, my enemies to destroy,
I'll mourn your name and praise your fame, forever, my Laughing Boy.
