HEXHAM RIOT 1761

In 1761 a new Militia Act came into force. Strangely it managed to arouse strong negative feelings in both ordinary working people and the ruling class: the former because a ballot system of recruitment - essentially conscription - was resented; the latter as training the masses to use weapons was felt to be dangerous for the future, priming them for revolution.
On March 9th 1761 a large crowd gathered in Hexham Market Place to protest about the ballot system, some putting the numbers as high as 5000, though a few hundred is more likely. For several hours the leaders of the protest talked with the magistrates, remonstrating about the imposition. Those magistrates feared violence, and brought in a force of the North Yorks Militia as protection against a mob attack. Their presence, however, probably further enflamed tempers.
Eventually the magistrates lost patience, and the Riot Act was read. As the crowd turned uglier, the soldiers fixed bayonets. The mob, by now its fierier members armed with tools and staves, charged. Two soldiers were killed with guns grabbed from them or their comrades, then a volley or far more probably a series of volleys was fired into the rioters. When the smoke cleared at least 50 were dead, including the two soldiers. Another 300 or more were injured, some of them dying later of their wounds. Among the dead were two pregnant women.
A hunt went on over the next few weeks for anyone known to have participated in the riot, taking in not just Hexham but the settlements around it, the list of casualties showing people from Corbridge, Slayley, Stamfordham and Ryall among many others had been involved. Unsurprisingly the North Yorks Militia earned the sobriquet The Hexham Butchers after the event.




TUESDAY MARCH 10TH 1761


‘The Market Place was a tragic sight. Bodies of the dead and wounded lay scattered. The ground was stained with blood and the cries of the wounded were pitiful. The following day it rained, washing away the traces.’


Wash away the day,
wash the pain away,
sweep the remains of yesterday
into the racing river.
Beat the Dead March,
bang the old drum,
heal Hexham’s bust bones
and cry me a river,
cry the Water of Tyne.
Wash away the day
and wash this pain away.


 
A PITMAN DEAD


With blood gushing out of his boot tops,
a well-dressed man
leaves town
along Priestpopple.
Thirteen men lie inside the Abbey,
not owned.
Numbers are found dead upon the roads.
Big with child, Sarah Carter shot,
the musket ball found in the child’s belly.
Thrice into a man’s body
lying at James Charlton’s shop door
it’s said they ran theIr bayonets;
and a pitman dead,
a weaver:
all those broken days of history,
all the slain hours in our diaries.
Sound the Abbey’s bells!
Let them toll the severed minutes.
Let them celebrate
the end of torture.
Let them gush
with rejoicing
for more peaceful times.



THERE’S A RIOT


These streets,
in this Heart of All England,
are swept clean of blood.
But the stains still soak our books.
Death upon death,
we turn the pages;
in between the lines,
we read about the screams,
time’s bullets
tearing flesh away.
There is terror lurking in this Market Place,
just scrape away the skin
and, deep down,
there’s a Riot:
a commotion boiling
a terrible turbulence,
a throbbing pain.
It is a Riot of gore,
a torrential downpour
of weeping:
a seeping sore
that is Hexham’s History.




KEITH ARMSTRONG

LIMERICK DAYS - ARMSTRONG AND DIXON WILL BE BACK THERE ON OCTOBER 3RD!

SHANNON

(dedicated to Richard St. John Harris and the roaring boys of Charlie St. George’s bar)

My heart is bursting its banks

with the songs of the Shannon.

My girl friend wells up with the beauty of daybreak,

her breasts swell with the glory of sunshine,

her eyes are glowing with wisdom.

Swim with me to the Atlantic surge,

we can watch the mighty birds take flight,

we can feel the urge of history in our bones

and ride on the aching backs of workers.

Shannon, you are our breath aglow

with the salmon of knowledge.

You are the spray in our faces,

full of bubbles of inspiration

welling up in our surging veins.

Wise one,

lift me up in your flow,

leave me in awe of your wonder.

Let me sparkle with the birth of new ideas,

reach out for the touch of a sensational moon,

dance in a festival of stars

and drown in the arms of a glorious goddess.

"There will be another song for me

for I will sing it.

There will be another dream for me,

someone will bring it.

I will drink the wine while it is warm

and never let you catch me looking at the sun

and after all the loves of my life,

after all the loves of my life,

you will still be the one.

I will take my life into my hands and I will use it,

I will win the worship in their eyes and I will lose it.

I will have the things that I desire

and my passion flow like rivers through the sky

and after all the loves of my life,

after all the loves of my life,

I will be thinking of you

and wondering why."

(last 2 verses are from 'Macarthur Park' as sung by RIchard Harris who was born in Limerick)

ROOKS AT BUNRATTY CASTLE

We’re Macnamara’s crows,

rooting for sticks and twigs in Limerick days.

We peck the flesh from Lord Gort’s arse,

from the hangers-on to his rich pickings.

We sweep our turbulent wings across the Shannon,

swimming in the Atlantic winds,

flailing over the airport.

We’re building our own

branches of castles,

screaming rebel rants at you below.

Us rooks

have seen the Vikings and the Stoddarts

rave and die.

We are a black brood

swarming though history,

watching you feckless humans

scrap over misery.

See how our wings beat

with the moment’s surf.

How dark our hearts grow

with suffering.

LIMERICK DAYS

(for Barney)

The greyhounds lash along the track,

as fists bash on the windows of Limerick Gaol.

I am staggering in the darkness of White Wine Lane,

and my path lies lost in the rain.

Let the horses run wildly out of control,

like my brain on too much whiskey and gin.

Let them throw my heart off the broad Shannon Bridge,

I have to die somewhere and this night will do.

I shout my poems out to the odd few who’ll listen,

be it Wolfe Tone or O’Dwyer or Davitt or Griffin.

I am lying dead drunk in the People’s Park,

I am knocked out with girls on poor Punch’s Row.

O Limerick Days you are haunting my soul,

my songs cry out for your old Summer Street.

Make love when I pour you a glass of my verse,

with hope may it set your ancient soul free.

CHE GUEVARA IN HANRATTY’S HOTEL

All the beer mats turned red in Limerick

the night that rebel Doctor Che Lynch took a wander

along Glentworth Street,

pouring

the jingling city

down his throat

on this island of his ancestors.

With a beard

as dark as the comforting Guinness,

he slaked his ruggerman’s thirst,

his well-shaken mix of Irish and Galician roots,

by the night-soaked Shannon.

Thirty months later, he was dead in Bolivia;

smashed bones,

splintered beads

of a revolutionary’s sweat

rolling down the guttter.

Now, I am sending this green poem

to your own heaven, old Che;

for your spirited lapel,

a singing sprig of shamrock

to light up the culture shock

of your long wild hair.

You chanced it in Hanratty’s ‘Gluepot’ bar,

you plunged from the leaden sky

to chat up all this local talent

in the eloquent lilt of a roaring evening.

Mighty ‘Red Bird’,

icon at the bar,

no better or worse

than the barman

who served you

a pint or two of Irish love,

to make your heart

grow even bigger;

to set you up

for your flight

from Limerick,

‘three sheets to the wind’,

rocking across the mighty expanse

of the rolling drunk Atlantic to Havana,

to a certain

martyr’s death.

And, amid the glorious beauty

of trees,

in the murderous jungle

of brutal dreams,

we soaks

will remember you

and celebrate the night

you fell in with us.

(Che Guevara visited Limerick fleetingly whilst his plane was delayed at Shannon Airport)

POEM FOR A LOCAL HISTORIAN

(in memory of Jim Kemmy 1936 -1997)

‘Old people mumbling

low in the night of change and of ageing

when they think you asleep and not listening -

and we wide awake in the dark,

as when we were children.’

(Desmond O’Grady)

'It was poignant,

when walking away from the graveyard

that very warm midday,

that the only sound which could be heard

after he was buried

was that of a member of his trade, a stonemason,

simply chipping away

at a monument.'

(Mary Jackman)

In this city, in every town, in every village,

there is this man

dusty with archives

and old snapshots;

this deep fellow

who digs out truths from scraps,

who drinks from a bowl of swirling voices

and makes sense of things,

makes sense

when all else

lies in chaos.

In his dreams,

wars are not dead.

They scream

from his books.

He will not let

the suffering go -

he owes the children that.

There is something noble

in his calling,

in his bearing.

His work is beautiful.

In this particular place,

you can call him 'Jim'.

You can see his face forever

in the autumn leaves,

the leaves of books,

and the dance of history,

a local historian

and carver of tales

so memorable

that every street must value his love:

the love of our people though the ages,

the love of learning,

the search for dignity

that underpins these lanes.

In Limerick,

Jim's imagination still blossoms

and keeps us rooted

in the drift of memory.

He teaches us lessons.

Listen to his spirit breathe

deep as the Shannon.

His voice forever flies

with the power of knowledge.

'Beautiful dreamer wake unto me,

Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for Thee.'

KEITH ARMSTRONG

(Jim Kemmy was a well known Limerick politician and local historian)