No Other Law

"We have declared for an Irish Republic.
We will live by no other law."

General Liam Lynch,
Irish Republican Army.

The Mother

The following poem was written by Patrick Pearse in May 1916 as he awaited execution in Kilmainham Gaol.


I do not grudge them: Lord, I do not grudge
My two strong sons that I have seen go out
To break their strength and die, they and a few,
In bloody protest for a glorious thing,
They shall be spoken of among their people,
The generations shall remember them,
And call them blessed;
But I will speak their names to my own heart
In the long nights;
The little names that were familiar once
Round my dead hearth.
Lord, thou art hard on mothers:
We suffer in their coming and their going;
And tho' I grudge them not, I weary, weary
Of the long sorrow - And yet I have my joy:
My sons were faithful, and they fought.


Pearse mentions the poem in his final letter to his mother, dated May 3rd, the day of his execution: 'You asked me to write a little poem which would seem to be said by you about me. I have written it, and a copy is in Arbour Hill Barracks with other papers and Father Aloysius is taking care of another copy of it.'