This was where the newly-arrived washed up –

green-eyed, open-mouthed, desperate, forced

to cohabit with robbers, ruffians, rouged harlots,

to endure the torture of endlessly clattering carts,

grating knife-grinders, beggars, dog-breakers,

parrot-sellers, herring-hawkers, metal-workers,

of brawling drunks and bawling women in labour.

Oh, how they suffocated in summer’s grease-slathered

mugginess, its toothless, foul-mouthed breath,

particles of coal dust coating once-healthy lungs.

Never again the evensong of nightingales in the woods,

Never again the percussive patter of rain on the Camcor.

Never again the crisp, clean oxygen of home – Ireland.

EMMA

EVERYTHING’S all right

until I open my pretty Irish mouth

and see the words Bog-trotter lumber

like the Great White Ape they think I am across

the cavities they call brains.

Mary Jane is full of cheek.

The harlots downstairs call her their ‘half-breed’.

Any time she wants a job…

Swallowed my pride like a lump of coal.

Called upon Uncle Lorcan.

Calmel Buildings, Marylebone.

Woollen shawl hugged against trembling cold,

blue-crusted feet quite bare, I was so thin

my cheekbones showed

like sharp stones.

Old, bowed, his long grey hair flowed:

Now you know.

Go back to your redcoat soldier, Traitor.

I told you a long, long time ago,

you have been disowned.

HENRY

‘HENRY Robbins of Brackley, Northamptonshire,

formerly of the 3rd Leinster Brigade, stationed

at Crinkle Barracks, Ireland,’ I say, seeking work

door-to-door in this dog-eat-dog hellhole.

Took to scavenging on rubbish heaps to save us

from starving, while Emma took Mary Jane to comb

the riverbank for things to salvage and sell.

Got a better job, eventually, picking up horse dung,

while the girls got a penny a peck shelling peas

in Covent Garden. Heck, we were on the up and up.

Look, the Army never prepared me for civilian life.

I went in at fifteen and just obeyed orders.

Truth is, I left my dignity behind in Ireland,

working head of my family, coming home Saturdays

with a hare or rabbit dangling from my belt.

Most nights I’m to be found at Baxters Beer House,

playing blackjack for a pint or two (or three), trying

to escape the malice in the wife’s smile, the gunpowder

fired from the barrel of her mouth: Gobshite!

And, when I take what’s mine at night: Dee-bawched!

TWENTY of us last time in the Black Maria.

Only three women, the prettiest were jumped.

Kind of behaviour I’d last seen in the army

when we stormed whole villages in the Uprisings.

If you object, your card is marked. So you don’t.

I’m an embarrassment to my withering little missus,

her words minced with arsenic: Addlebrained cretin!

Only time I get photographed is in Newgate.

‘Dashing’? – not passed the wife’s lips for years.

Very fetching – is my hardened convict look.

Mary Jane writes letters, silly when I can’t read.

Only time I have a bath is inside. The water’s

a muddy brown because they don’t change it.