SAVANNAH'S
IRISH-AMERICAN POET
by
J.C. Sullivan
Throughout our lives we meet 'Irish' people. Some are native-born, some
are Irish-Americans'. Some we soon forget, some we can never forget. Savannah's
Irish poet laureate, Jimmy Buttimer, falls into this latter category. Currently
enrolled in a Masters Program (History), he's always been interested in
history. With the death of his grandfather, Patrick Joseph
Buttimer, the entire family took care of him the last few years of his life,
they talked a great deal about his childhood in Savannah.
"He knew his grandfather, the original emigrant from Cork, and his
name was Patrick Joseph. So I started to research a lot to do with the family
and a lot of the records I found intact on his life were his service records in
the Confederate Army. I followed his regiment and found a diary of one of the
members of the regiment that had some really remarkable passages in there
about the Irish soldiers that made up about a third of the regiment. I went
ahead from there and added imagination to the facts that I found but my poetry
is all based on primary sources and materials.
He was in a unit called the
First Georgia Regulars. They were a unique regiment, probably the
crackerjack regiment. They were sent from Georgia to Virginia early in the
war," Buttimer said. He continued. "They had professional discipline;
the officers were from the best, well-known families in the State. They were very strict in
their discipline and training and so they were much more professional than many
other units in existence at the beginning of the war. They were recruited, a large number of them,
from Irish dockworkers here in Savannah.
Instead of a regional pool they were created statewide and sent up to
Virginia in service of the Army of Northern Virginia
(Confederate)."
One evening during Savannah's recent Irish Festival he took the stage at
Kevin Barry's Pub on River Street. A hush fell over the crowd and a shh went out from them in an attempt to
deaden the chatter from the next door bar. "To Have A History," is a
tribute to his great-great grandfather. Speaking with a brogue that an American
would be hard pressed to discern as not being native to Ireland, he begins.
"Now I have heard the different camps
proclaim their honor and these same men would
seek to find the first wrong on a
field of carnage
So as to say that one was Cain, the
other Abel.
But I was there to live the hate, to smell
the fear and heed the
slaughter and here's the Hell of it.
We murdered them and they murdered us
and that was our war in the Deep South when
we were fighting the Negroes.
On John's Island we were pressed by a vast
host of Negroes.
They carried the works on our right flank
and murdered the wounded Stono Scouts before our eyes. But their victory was
short as we counterattacked and the men went red-eyed mad with rage.
We shot the captives where they
stood
or hunted them down in the tall grass to finish them off
with clubbed rifles and bayonets.
And we would have killed them all but for our officers
who beat us with their swords."
Midway through his poem he pauses to catch his breath and compose
himself, temporarily overwhelmed by the deep emotions he feels. Flashing eyes
reveal the inner passion of his deeply-felt West Cork Irish roots. After a few
moments he continues.
"In quiet moments long removed that hellish day is with me.
'Twas there I heard the sound of
blood lapping from throat to earth
and saw the bodies arch and heave with each fresh gout of blood.
And now I'm back in the Old Fort
with the Negroes and the Irish as
before the war.
And my neighbor comes from Africa
with ritual scars upon his face as a
sign of his people.
And now his son runs with my son
as two-legged pups through the dusty
lanes.
And I often stop and wonder...at the quareness of it all.
At times like these my heart is
troubled
and I walk the few blocks to the river.
And I watch its currents moil.
'Tis a great, muddy beast of a river...
'Tis the lifeblood of God, and it
carries the sins of the world.
What was it drove my hand to murder?
Was it truly the love of one thing
and the hatred of another?
Or did the priest say more than he knew?
We are made in His image. We are
made in His image.
So ye that would seek the first wrong on a field of carnage
content yourself with what ye find.
But I would tell ye as ye do not
know, that murder is murder
and a history is a hard thing to have."
