Wat Murphy and The Rose of Mooncoin
Wat Murphy and The Rose of Mooncoin
Jack Lynch
People from Kilkenny love to sing The Rose of Mooncoin in celebration of another All Ireland Senior Hurling Championship win. Thirty six times so far and twenty-three in my lifetime.
Flow on lovely river, flow gently along
By your waters so sweet sounds the larks merry song
On your green banks I’ll wander where first I did join
With you lovely Molly the Rose of Mooncoin
Who was Molly and who was the poet wandering with her? Why did he go on to say?
Oh Molly, dear Molly, it breaks my fond heart
To know that we two forever must part
I’ll think of you Molly while sun and moon shine
On the banks of the Suir that flows down by Mooncoin
A lament for lost love, The Rose of Mooncoin was written by a local man, Watt Murphy, Watt was born at Rathkieran near to Mooncoin in 1790 to John Murphy and Eleanor Walsh. His father was a schoolteacher in Carrigeen. Watt followed his father in education and eventually set up his own school in Chapel Street, Mooncoin in the 1820’s.
By the 1830’s the resistance to payment of tithes was widespread throughout the country. Watt Murphy had written about The Battle of Carrickshock in 1831 at which seventeen people were killed and in 1832 during a Tithe collection at Carrigeen Church, Mooncoin, the police killed two young people, Catherine Foley and Joseph Sinnott. Watt Murphy was enraged by these happenings and wrote a poem, which excoriated the constabulary, military and the government. He was upbraided and punished by the school inspectorate who suspended him from his school. He was known afterwards as ‘The Rebel Poet’.
Watt was noted as an excellent teacher and was soon reinstated and his school became a parochial school in 1833 and in 1839 became a state school. By 1844 Watt had 170 pupils on the roll.
He met a young girl, the daughter of the Rector, James Wills who had arrived to the Church of Ireland Parish of Polerone and Rathkieran in 1846. Elizabeth Wills, known by the pet name Molly, was interested in poetry as was Watt so they began to meet on the banks of the Suir and recite poetry to each other as they walked up and down the banks. The Rectors house was at Polerone Quay and it was said that Watt spent part of his day standing in the porch of the rectory, conversing with Molly. These practises of writing, reading and recitation of poetry were quite common in the early nineteenth century. The girl, Molly, or Elizabeth Wills, was twenty years of age and Watt Murphy was fifty-seven at this time.
Molly’s father the Reverend Rector Wills became alarmed by this state of affairs and sent his daughter away to England and he moved with his family to Kilmacow parish. Poor Watt was heartbroken and walked The Banks of the Suir on his own composing this beautiful poem of loss to his departed love.
The Rector’s daughter, Molly, Elizabeth never married and eventually came back to Dublin and is buried there. It is said that the Wills family were related to Oscar Wilde. Oscar O’Flaherty Wills Wilde.
Watt Murphy died in 1858, ten years after Molly went away, and he is buried in Rathkieran cemetery.
Watt Murphy’s song of lovelorn loss lives on in the Kilkenny anthem that resounds around Croke Park and Kilkenny County on many hurling All Ireland Sundays.