Jimmy Buttimer - Savannah's Irish-American Poet

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."