Stories from the Exile

Words, music and arrangements by Vincent Lockhart


Agnes Connolly
(1882-1977)
Frascati, Italy
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It was a long night to London
now its rush hour passes by me.
O and no one here meets me.
No one here greets me.
No one denies or replies to my words.
There’s just the whores and the waitresses
looking for my money
so I leave, like a ghost alone,
for lands more pleasant and sunny.
 
And high above the azure sky
I hear your distant cry,
“Ah, come home, ah, come home
and see me before I die”.
 
And I travel your lifetime
through the green fields of France.
And here, like the dreams you held,
love came by chance.
But your young soldier from Canada
was dreamed into war
last seen in 1916
shivering in the snow.
And they buried him
only God knows where
five thousand miles from home,
and there, in the small town park,
growing dirty and dark,
he’s just another name carved in stone.
 
And high above the blackened sky
you heard his distant cry,
“Ah, come here, ah, come here
and see me before I die”.
 
And I live now in silence
in the hills above Rome.
And they tell me there’s bombs and hatred
all around your home.
But the light in these vineyards
is crystal and clear.
And I remember how all your life,
how you wished to come here.
Ah, but if God is there amongst us now
the light will never die
and the rainy skies of Ireland
will cease their weary cry.
The world is ill at ease tonight
as I pray for you.
Background



Agnes Connolly was my great-aunt and came from Newry in Northern Ireland.

As a young woman she was the nanny to the children of the Duke of Buccleuch and lived in France.

During the First World War she was engaged to a Canadian officer who was killed at the front. She never married.

Latterly she lived in Newry next door to the police barracks which were bombed in 1975.



















Vocal, guitar, synthesiser and orchestral sequencing: Vincent Lockhart
Piano:
Violin: