Poem by TC Murray

From a newspaper cutting:

In Memoriam
May Cotter, Emerald Place, Blarney

How beautiful she sleeps
    After the days of pain,
With that strange, sweet light upon her,
    Like starlight after rain !

It is the kiss of angels,
    In radiance ling'ring there;
Or else 'tis the trailing glory
    Of a soul divinely fair.

Ah me ! 'twas the long, rough way
   For the tender feet of a child;
'Twas the cruel road to be turning,
  When Youth and Promise smiled.

But love was strong as the sea,
  And deep as the sea was Faith :
When Love and Faith clasp hands,
  The gate of Heaven is death.

And so, like a spirit refreshed
  By a draught which the angels bring,
She walked with her bleeding feet,
  And smiled at suffering !

Now beautiful she lies,
  After the days of pain,
With that wondrous light upon her,
    Like starlight after rain.

Oct, 1909                  -- T.C.M.

May Cotter died 14 Oct 1909, aged 18
Poem by her uncle T.C. Murray (Thomas Cornelius Murray), teacher, playwright and poet, (1873-1959)

Me and Che Guevara

When you work on your family tree, you hope to come across some interesting characters. For instance, on my father's side is James F. X. O'Brien an Irishman who was sentenced to be hung drawn and quartered but later became an MP alongside Parnell. There is also the Irish playwright T.C. Murray, whose plays were performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. On my mother's side we managed to trace back to an ancestor who was a woolcomber in Mountsorrell who died in 1776. The family moved around a bit and a later ancestor was a bank manager in Rye. 


However my mother then discovered some Irish relatives and it emerged that a relative called Patrick Lynch went to South America around 1750 and became quite successful. A family tree was published online and one of his descendants was Che Guevera. Thus it is that I am a seventh cousin of Che Guevara. Although he died in 1967, he is still a prominent and controversial figure. I can not claim to be like him but it is quite odd to see so many copies of that image of my seventh cousin.