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| THERE ’s a place in the middle of Ireland called | |
| Seven Churches of Clonmacnoise,— | |
| As noisy a place as ever squalled, | |
| If the churches have each a different voice. | |
| I never was there myself, or mayhap | 5 |
| I ’d say something authentic of my own, | |
| Only, I see the place on the map, | |
| Some miles on the south side of Athlone; | |
| And it strikes me, as the name I read, | |
| That it must be a very queer place indeed. | 10 |
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| In what year of our Lord did it get such a name? | |
| When the ranting Protestant sects began? | |
| Or farther back, when St. Patrick came, | |
| And fashioned the heathen on the Roman plan? | |
| And for what good reason was such a name given? | 15 |
| Did he actually seven churches raise? | |
| Was the necromantic number seven | |
| Supposed to be all essential for praise? | |
| No; Patrick had too much equipoise | |
| To pitch the whole seven at Clonmacnoise. | 20 |
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| I rather think place and name arose | |
| Subsequent to Luther, Calvin, and Knox,— | |
| Three of the Pope’s most terrible foes, | |
| Who broke up his fold into many flocks. | |
| Then seven of the sects, for all one knows, | 25 |
| Had made their way to this central spot, | |
| And seven churches, we may suppose, | |
| Might then be built as well as not. | |
| Hence Clonmacnoise when the noisy seven | |
| Sang each in a different key to Heaven. | 30 |
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