'A Call from the Trenches to Shirkers' - a message from Ballywalter, 20th November 1911

I am very pleased that my good friend Mark Anderson has given me permission to post this poem here. It was recently uncovered during the research phase of a project I was very pleased to work with Mark, and others, on. More about the project in a future post, once it is all public.

If this is how Ballywalter folk spoke at the time, it's also how Ballywalter men in the trenches spoke at the time. And not just Ballywalter - a very great proportion of the Ulstermen who fought would have been from Ulster-Scots communities and so would have spoken like this. I can hardly imagine that they made efforts to use schoolroom English in the trenches of death.

I am aware that there are other Ulster-Scots poems from the Great War. And a number of Ulster-Scots writers have connections with the War.