Part Seven of Eugene Dunphy’s series on Irish Ballads
In early November 1921, during the course of a meeting of the Board of Guardians, in Trim, County Meath, Councillor John King read aloud the contents of a letter written by an unfortunate woman (unnamed) who had ended up in the Trim Workhouse.
She implored board members to consider doing two things this winter: to provide the women of the workhouse with warm shawls, and to ensure that the cold milk, served twice a week with their ‘dinner’ (bread only), was heated. Concluding her letter with a line from a beautiful song, she said that if these requirements were not met, ‘we never will be able to plough the Rocks of Bawn’.