Helen Blackwood [Lady Dufferin]

Life
1807-67; [Lady Dufferin, née Helen Selina Sheridan; pseud. “Honourable Impulsia Gushington”]; b. London; dg. of Tom [Thomas] Sheridan [q.v.] and Carolina [née Callander; q.v.]; thus also a g-dg. of R. B. Sheridan [q.v.]; sister of Caroline Norton [q.v.], and the Duchess of Somerset - comprising the much celebrated Three Beauties; also 4 brothers; accompanied Thomas Sheridan and his wife to S. Africa, alone of her siblings; she is said to have seen Napoleon strolling in garden at St Helena on a return journey to Ireland at the time of her father's death; m. Captain Price Blackwood, 4 July 1825, and lived in Italy for 2 years under disapproval of his family; often separated from her husband by his naval career; suffered her husband's early death in 1841 and stayed on at Ballyleidy House (later called Clandeboye House) when her son Frederick Temple Blackwood [q.v.] inherited the estate; best-known as author of the emigrant poem of “I’m sitting on my Stile, Mary” - a lament spoken by a widowed peasant on the eve of departure - presumably for America (‘They say there’s bread and work for all, / And the sun shines always there’);

A Selection of the Songs of Lady Dufferin (1895) was edited by her son - ironically a strong proponent of emigration as a panecea for Irish agrarian problems; Helen’s Tower, a mock-Norman keep in the Scottish baronial style, was and build by him to a design by William Burn in 1850, intended as a repository for her poems and those of others including Tennyson's “Helen’s Tower” (in Tiresias, 1885); first conceived as the gamekeeper's lodge it was endowed with her name on completion; the Ulster Tower at Thiepval, modelled on it, serves as a monument to soldiers lost and missing in World War I - commemorating the fact that the Ulster 36th Division trained at Clandebotyye before departure for the front; she died of breast cancer, marrying the Earl of Gifford on her death-bed; nowadays Clandeboye is a diary-product brand-name bearing the signature Lindy Guinness on the yoghurt tubs. CAB JMC ODNB MKA DIW RAF FDA OCIL

 

Works
To My Dear Son, on his 21st Birthday (c.1861, priv.); Songs, Poems, and Verses (London: John Murray 1894), ed. with memoir by her son the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava; A Selection of the Songs of Lady Dufferin, set to music by herself and others (London: John Murray 1895), edited by her son.

A Selection of the Songs of Lady Dufferin, Set to Music by Herself and Others (1895), incls. “Sweet Kilkenny Town” [‘I was workin’ in the fields near fair Boston City / Thinkin’ sadly of Kilkenny ... ]; “The Emigrant Ship” [‘where a hundred thousands welcomes shall be for evermore!’; “The Lament of the Irish Emigrant” [‘I’m sitting on my stile, Mary ... The red was in your lips, Mary / The lovelight in your eye’]; “Katey’s Letter”, and “The Bay of Dublin”, et al.

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Criticism
Catherine Jane Hamilton, ‘Helen, Lady Dufferin’, in Notable Irishwomen (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers & Co. 1904); Harold Nicholson, Helen’s Tower (London: Constable 1937), ill.,

See also remarks in Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2 - viz., ‘part of a repertoire that is one of the many cultural manifestations of the tortuous negotiations between Gaelic and English modes of civilisation that remain central to the island’s history’ (p.77 - as infra).

 

Commentary
G. B. Shaw: Shaw illustrates the unsentimental Irishman in Larry Doyle by quoting the well known song: ‘An Irishman’s heart is nothing but his imagination. How many of all those millions that have left Ireland have ever come back or wanted to come back? But whats the use of talking to you? Three verses of twaddle about the Irish emigrant “sitting on the stile, Mary” [...] go further with you than all the facts that stare you in the face.’ (John Bull’s Other Island, 1906, Act. I.)

Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Helen’s Tower”

Hele’s Tower, here I stand,
Dominant over sea and land.
So’s love built me, and I hold
Mother’s love in letter’d gold.
Love is in and out of time,
I am mortal stone and lime.

 Would my granite girth were strong
As either love, to last as long
I should wear my crown entire
To and thro’ the Doomsday fire,
And be found of angel eyes
In earth’s recurring Paradise.

F. J. Bigger, in a cutting held at the Belfast Linenhall Library, calls her authoress of “The Bay of Dublin”, with remarks, viz., née Helen Sheridan; Frederick Blackwood, Dufferin and Ava, Viceroy of India, her only son, very affectionately attached to her, considered her to have a unique love of nature. She wrote “I’m sitting on the stile, Mary ...”, and “The Irish Emigrant” [‘The red was in your lips, Mary, / The lovelight in your eye.’]

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References
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1912) - lists for Lady Helen Selina DUFFERIN: Lispings from Low Latitudes, a prose work, over pseudonym of “Hon. Impulsia Gushington,” London, 1863, oblong 8vo; To my dear Son, on his 21st Birthday, verses, 1861 (?), 4to, privately printed, with some verses by Tennyson on “Helen’s Tower,” Clandeboye; Songs, Poems, and Verses, edited by her son, the Marquis of Dufferin, London, 1894, 8vo; A Selection of the Songs of Lady D., set to music by herself and others, edited by her son, London, 1895, 8vo.’ O’Donoghue remarks: ‘Well known as author of some beautiful Irish songs, as “I’m sitting on the Stile, Mary,” “Terence’s Farewell,” “The Bay of Dublin,” etc. Born in 1807, the daughter of Thomas Sheridan, and grand-daughter of Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan. Died in London, June 13, 1867. Just before his death, she married the Earl of Gifford, and became a countess.’

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Quotations

“The Lament of the Irish Emigrant”

I’M sittin’ on the stile, Mary,
Where we sat side by side
On a bright May mornin’ long ago,
When first you were my bride;
The corn was springin’ fresh and green,
And the lark sang loud and high—
And the red was on your lip, Mary,
And the love-light in your eye.

The place is little changed, Mary,
The day is bright as then,
The lark’s loud song is in my ear,
And the corn is green again;
But I miss the soft clasp of your hand,
And your breath warm on my cheek,
And I still keep list’ning for the words
You never more will speak.

‘Tis but a step down yonder lane,
And the little church stands near,
The church where we were wed, Mary,
I see the spire from here.
But the graveyard lies between, Mary,
And my step might break your rest—
For I’ve laid you, darling! down to sleep,
With your baby on your breast.

I’m very lonely now, Mary,
For the poor make no new friends,
But, O, they love the better still,
The few our Father sends!
And you were all I had, Mary,
My blessin’ and my pride:
There ‘s nothin’ left to care for now,
Since my poor Mary died.

Yours was the good, brave heart, Mary,
That still kept hoping on,
When the trust in God had left my soul,
And my arm’s young strength was gone:
There was comfort ever on your lip,
And the kind look on your brow—
I bless you, Mary, for that same,
Though you cannot hear me now.

I thank you for the patient smile
When your heart was fit to break,
When the hunger pain was gnawin’ there,
And you hid it, for my sake!
I bless you for the pleasant word,
When your heart was sad and sore—
O, I’m thankful you are gone, Mary,
Where grief can’t reach you more!

I’m biddin’ you a long farewell,
My Mary—kind and true!
But I’ll not forget you, darling!
In the land I’m goin’ to;
They say there ‘s bread and work for all,
And the sun shines always there—
But I’ll not forget old Ireland,
Were it fifty times as fair!

And often in those grand old woods
I’ll sit, and shut my eyes,
And my heart will travel back again
To the place where Mary lies;
And I’ll think I see the little stile
Where we sat side by side:
And the springin’ corn, and the bright May morn,
When first you were my bride.
No. 691 in The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900, ed. Arthur Quiller-Couch (1912); available in Bartleby - online.

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References
Brian McKenna, Irish literature, 1800-1875: a Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978), cites “Helen’s Tower”, Clandeboye, by Alfred Lord Tennyson [with] To My Dear son on his 21st Birthday (Clandeboye, private ca. 1861).

Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: University of America 1904) selects “Lament for the Irish Emigrant”, “Terence’s Farewell”, and “Katey’s Letter” (pp.933-36) [available at Internet Archive online].

Chris Morash, The Hungry Voice (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1989), selects “Lament for the Irish Emigrant” from Songs, Poems and Verses (London: John Murray 1894).

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2 selects “The Irish Emigrant” from Songs and Poems and Verses [103]; notes her down among 100 poets remembered for one lyric [3]; popular stylised sentimentality of “The Irish Exile” [Deane, ed.; 67]; part of a repertoire that is one of the many cultural manifestations of the tortuous negotiations between Gaelic and English modes of civilisation that remain central to the island’s history [ibid.; 77]; BIOG as supra [114].

Belfast Public Library holds Lispings; also Blackwood, [ed.,] H. S., Poems, Songs and Verses (1895). Note that Lispings shares or echoes the title of a collection by Francis Davis (publ. Belfast).

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Notes
Helen’s Tower in Co. Down was built by Lord Dufferin in honour of his mother, with a bronze tablet bearing lines written by Alfred Lord Tennyson: ‘Helen’s Tower, here I stand, / Dominant over sea and land, / Son’s love built me, and I hold / Mother’s love in lettered gold. / Love is in and out of time, / I am mortal stone and lime [...]’.(Quoted in P. J. Kavanagh, Voices in Ireland, 1994, p.28.)

Ulster dead: The monument to Ulster dead at Albert on the Somme is modelled on Helen’s Tower; see Brian J. Graham, ‘No Place of the Mind: Contested Protestant Representation of Ulster’, in Ecumene: Journal of Environment, Culture, Meaning, 1.3 (1994), p.273.

Young love: Lord Dufferin wrote of her second marriage: ‘In justice to herself, to him [Gifford] and to his parents, she thought it necessary to obtain from the doctors a formal assurance that her recovery was impossible.’ (Dufferin, 1895, p.93); Dufferin claims that her work was frequently published under her sister Caroline’s name at the request of her first husband.

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