TO MY DAUGHTER BETTY, THE GIFT OF GOD

In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown
To beauty proud as was your mother's prime,
In that desired, delayed, incredible time,
You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own,
And the dear heart that was your baby throne,
To dice with death. And Oh! they'll give you rhyme
And reason: some will call the thing sublime,
And some decry it in a knowing tone.
And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,
Know that we fools, now with foolish dead,
Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,
But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,
And for the secret scripture of the poor.

Tom Kettle, 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Irish Nationalist, barrister, poet, writer, famed orator, one-time MP for South Tyrone, and convert to a peaceful settlement for Ireland. Killed near this spot 9th September 1916.

His daughter Betty died in her 80s in an old people's home in Dublin some 20 or so years ago.