A fine poem by Oliver St. John Gogarty.

An acrostic poem attributed to Oliver St John Gogarty, posing as a patriotic welcome home for Irish yeomen while hiding a far less polite message.

The poet

Oliver St John Gogarty (1878–1957) was a Dublin surgeon, poet, wit and politician. Educated in part at Trinity College Dublin, he became an ear, nose and throat specialist, served as a senator of the Irish Free State, and wrote the memoir As I Was Going Down Sackville Street (1937). To many readers he is best known as the original of Buck Mulligan, who appears at the Martello tower in Sandycove at the opening of James Joyce’s Ulysses; Joyce and Gogarty stayed in the tower together in 1904. Gogarty’s taste for bawdy verse and practical jokes was well known among his Dublin contemporaries.

The joke in the poem

The poem below presents itself as a tribute to the yeomanry, volunteer mounted soldiers who served in the Boer War of 1899–1902, on their return home. Read normally, it is a string of conventional patriotic phrases about victory, empire and loving homecomings. Read downwards, however, the first letters of its nineteen lines spell out THE WHORES WILL BE BUSY, a frank comment on how the returning soldiers might spend their time. Like much of the comic verse that circulated under Gogarty’s name, it is hard to date or source precisely, so it is best regarded as attributed to him.

The text is given as it appeared on the original page, including the spellings “yoeman” in the first line and “hoys” (for “boys”) in the tenth. Gogarty also appears elsewhere on the site, in an account of Kildonan aerodrome and in the chronology of Dublin, 1900–2000. More short pieces are listed in the general contents.

A poem by Oliver St. John Gogarty. It’s completely innocent - or is it?

‘The gallant Irish yoeman

Home from the war has come.

Each victory gained o’er foeman,

Why should our hearts be dumb?

How shall we sing their praises

Or glory in their deeds,

Renowned their worth amazes,

Empire their prowess needs.

So to Old Ireland’s hearts and homes

We welcome now our own brave hoys

In cot and hall; ‘neath lordly domes

Love’s heroes share once more our joys.

Love in the Lord of all just now,

Be he the husband, lover, son,

Each dauntless soul recalls the vow

By which not fame, but love was won.

United now in fond embrace

Salute with joy each well loved face.

Yeoman, in women’s hearts you hold the place.

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