Literature12 Seamus Heaney: Requiem for the Croppies

The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley...
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp...
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
A people hardly marching... on the hike...
We found new tactics happening each day:
We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave.

This piece was published on the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. It was written in tribute to the rebels who fought against Britain in 1798. The word “Croppies” comes from the style in which the fighters wore their hair. Throughout the text, Seamus Heaney chose to use a first-person narrator. This makes the person’s depictions of the fighters all the more realistic. It seems that this person also had a stake in the fight; Ireland was also his country. The “croppies” did everything they could to fight off the British, their desperation is made very clear. A reader should sympathize with their plight and feel for the men, especially when they face death at the end.