Description
‘Three Brave Blacksmiths’ – Limited Edition Artprint. In 1888 in Miltown Malbay, three local blacksmiths, Maguire, Moloney and Heaney, were jailed for supporting the boycotting of a local landlord, Mrs Burdett Moroney, by refusing to shoe the horse of one of her employees. They were sentenced to a day for every nail they would have used, a total of 28 days. The term ‘grabber’ in the first verse is an 18th/19th century expression, an abbreviation of ‘land-grabber’, referring to a person who took possession of lands of evicted tenants. The song was written by T D Sullivan, Land Leaguer and editor of ‘The Nation’, and was first published in 1888 in ‘Prison Poems or Lays of Tullamore’. He also wrote ‘God Save Ireland’.”
