The Navvy Poetorder this book
Patrick MacGill
Price £40 hardback, £20 paperback.

Patrick MacGill is still known in Ireland, Scotland and parts of England as the Navvy Poet. Here for the first time is all of MacGill's poetry collected in one volume, covering his childhood in Ireland (Songs of Donegal), his life as a navvy in Scotland (Songs of the Dead End), and his experience of war in Flanders (Soldier Songs). MacGill can be considered as one of the first socialist poets, and his poems to this day are still quoted and known about among working men in Ireland, Scotland and the North of England.

This volume is complementary to MacGill's other writings, particularly his great socialist classic, Children of the Dead End, and the moving and terrifying account of the First World War, The Great Push. This book should be of interest to both those who take pleasure in poetry for its own sake, and those who wish to understand the writings and life of one of Ireland's most important socialist writers.

THE FLY

Buzz-fly and gad-fly, dragon-fly and blue,

When you're in the trenches come and visit you,

They revel in your butter-dish and riot on your ham,

Drill upon the army cheese and loot the army jam.

They're with you in the dusk and the dawning and the noon,

They come in close formation, in column and platoon.

There's never zest like Tommy's zest when these have got to die:

For Tommy takes his puttees off and strafs the blooming fly.

ISBN 0904573990. Hardback, 407 pages.
ISBN 1850660018. Paperback, 407 pages.

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