Forged from a conversation with a woman from New York, New York in a pub in Fishguard, Pembrokeshire. She told me the story of her ancestors enslavement in the South Georgia Islands off the coast of the USA and of the Irish Quaker who released them from slavery. Her African roots were too vague, so she set out to trace the family of the man who set her family free.
Lyrics
The Pilgrim
She told me she came from the South Georgia Islands
by way of New Hampshire and the streets of New York;
visiting Wales, en route to Ireland
and the town of Kilmona
in the County of Cork.
Her father's grandfather was a plantation crewman,
from island to island his whole life he rowed,
ferrying his comrades from owner to owner,
and never a penny
he sought or was owed.
When he turned sixty he was granted his freedom,
by an upright new owner who would not keep slaves
but his son took his place in the bow of the longboat
and sang the same songs
to the ghosts in the waves.
She knew that her true roots were bound deep in Africa
but those roots had withered and died on the beach;
so she sought the line of a kind Irish Quaker
across unknown waters
to the ghosts she could reach.
For tracing her history revealed Seamus Donnelly,
the upright young owner who set her kin free;
she found that he hailed from the town of Kilmona
and part of her pilgrimage
was talking to me.
Story is everything, it holds us together,
your tales and my tales, they need to be shared
said the gentle voiced lady from the South Georgia Islands
and in the tales telling
our spirit is repaired.
She told me she came from the South Georgia Islands
by way of New Hampshire and the streets of New York;
a pilgrim in search of the roots of her story
and the town of Kilmona
in the County of Cork.
The town of Kilmona
in the County of Cork.
