I started my research on the historic links between golf and poetry around 2008. At the same time I started composing golf poems. I turned my research efforts into a book, Golf Course of Rhymes, that was published in 2011. The book includes poems by golfers from Scotland, England, Canada and the United States. This blog also includes a poem by an Australian. However, up to now I’ve never discovered a golf poem by an Irish poet. So, as we prepare for this year’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, I am happy to finally offer an Irish Golf Poem, “Groans of an Irish Caddie” by Mr. W. F. Collier, LL. D. (1831-1904). According to Google AI, “Collier was born in Dublin and attended Trinity College there, earning both a B.A. and an LL.D. While he worked at a school in Glasgow, he spent thirty years as the English master at the Belfast Royal Academy.” Here is his poem:

Groans of an Irish Caddie

Oh! Paddy dear, an’ did ye hear
  The news that’s in the pubs?
Them golfers is removin’
  All the shamrocks wid their clubs.
The puttin’ grass so nately swep.
  Is nowheres to be seen,
For the mischiefs in that mashie-club
  That’s rippin’ up the green.
I met wid Arty Balfour,
  An’ he tuk me by the hand,
An’ sez he—“I’ve sliced the soil mysel’,
  So, shure, I onderstand.”
It’s the most uprippit coun-thery
  That I’ve ever seen:
From Dollymount to swate Portrush
  They’re wearin’ out the green.
Oh! Some in coats o’ cruel red,
  An’ some in tartan knicks,
An’ some wid ties o’ chancy blue,
  Bud all o’ them wid sticks.
An’ they batthers at a weenie ball
  That’s lyin’ in the sod,
An’ hits it—no! they hammers it,
  An’ digs out pounds o’ clod.

If the ball wint wid the surface thin
  Them two’d complate the scene—
But no! it’s sleepin’ where it lay,
  Like a mushroom, white an’ clean.
It’s the most uprooted coun-thery
  That iver yit was seen:
From Aughnacloy to Kinnegar
  They’re slicin’ off the green.
They comes wid drivers, cleeks, an’ spoons,
  An’ clubs o’ quarest name,
An’ they calls a hape o’ sand their tay,
  But it’s whishky that they mane.
An’ they calls the sods they’re flittherin’ out
  Big “divots” as they fly,
For they can’t spake dacent English,
  Like yersilf, Paudeen, an’ I.
Oh! who’s to save poor Oireland
  Whin they’ve sthript our Immirald Queen,
An’ nothin’s left bud bogs an’ rocks
  Contagious to be seen
In the most un-grass-ful coun-thery
  That iver yit has been—
Augh! divil take that mashie-stick,
  For it’s KILLIN’ out the green.

If you are an Irish golfer or have golfed in Ireland, you can probably understand the “groans” pretty well. For the rest of us, there are some difficulties. I’ll try to help a little. Arty Balfour is Arthur Balfour who was British statesman and Conservative politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. He was also an avid golfer. The line, “From Dollymount to swate Portrush,” can be understood as, halfway across Ireland from great golf courses on the east coast all the way north to Portrush and other great golf courses. Finally, the name “Paudeen” probably comes from W.B. Yeats’ poem of the same name. The name is used to represent an ordinary, perhaps unremarkable Irishman.

Comments are always welcome.