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Seán Body

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Seasons

Hunger drove them here
where only the spirit starved.
Of all places, one
they would not have chosen.

Among outcasts, they
were outcast; carriers
of disease, poverty,
their unforgiven history.

And unforgiving. Fed
cotton mills, dissension,
a plethora of wars; kept intact
a dream of Ireland.

Today, their memory's
an entertainment, a guided walk,
a footnote in the history
of old Manchester - Yet

so bleak this morning
they might still be here, gaunt
against the grudged light;
recognisable

that stoop of Connaught fields
remembering the cut
of an Atlantic wind,
the healing of seasons.

 


"In a rather deep hole, in a curve of the Medlock and surrounded on all four sides by tall factories and high embankments, covered with buildings, stand two groups of about two hundred cottages, built chiefly back to back, in which live about four thousand human beings, most of them Irish. The cottages are old, dirty, and of the smallest sort, the streets uneven, fallen into ruts and in part without drains or pavement, masses of refuse, offal and sickening filth lie among standing pools in all directions; the atmosphere is poisoned by the effluvia from these, and laden and darkened by the smoke of a dozen tall factory chimneys... The race that lives in these ruinous cottages... must really have reached the lowest stage of humanity."

Frederick Engels
The Condition of the Working Class in England

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