Requiem for the Croppies

REQUIEM FOR THE CROPPIES

A requiem is a mass for the dead,
In this case that is the “croppies” who were Catholic peasants from rural communities that organized themselves into an army to rebel against their Protestant suppressor. SO Seamus Heaney’s poem “Requiem for the Croppies” is a tribute to Irish rebels of the late eighteenth century who resisted English domination of their country.
They were called “croppies” because they cut (or “cropped”) their hair short as a sign of defiance. (in the manner of the French revolutionaries)
Because Heaney’s poem deals with one example of the long-standing conflict between England and Ireland, it is a poem brimming with social awareness and cultural politics.
The poem is about the defeat of the Croppies at Vinegar hill in 1798
It commemorates their struggle and suggests that something has grown out of their sacrifice.
The poem is written in sonnet form - fourteen lines, although without any division into sections.
The poem uses the past tense…….They moved, they died, they were buried, and finally the barley grew up out of the grave.
Heaney never makes these events specific to one person
the style of the poem seems almost deliberate to erase any sense of individuality; we, our or us is always used in place of “I”, “She” or “He”
This seems to emphasize the way in which Heaney identifies with the Croppies not as a political movement but as a tribal group fighting against the repossession of their land into foreign hands.
In adopting a persona from the root of the English/Irish conflict, a persona so clearly on the Irish side of the battle, Heaney makes clear that this is his identity; that through this historical link he is expressing his loyalty to the Irish Catholics throughout history and not simply at Vinegar Hill.
The more generalized speaking voice also gives the poem more emotional impact because it refuses to allow the reader’s emotions to settle into distant pity as it is the voice of humanity speaking to us.
Heaney uses the specific image of Irish freedom, and of the 178 rebels, to explore the theme of life and death. The life of the idealist and fighter is unsatisfactory. There is no rest, no relaxation, no kitchens on the run, no striking camp. All men are reduced to one level. The weak must fight on the sly, and hope that no fatal conclave is in store and that new tactics will buy them time.
Yet destruction may come, a hillside soaked in blood. Given sufficient power of opposition, it will be brought about. The life lived, and its ending then becomes unsatisfactory. Life is a broken wave, and so might be death.
This poem is relevant to social awareness and cultural politics in a number of ways, including the following:

It deals with the centuries-old conflict between England and Ireland.
It not only deals with the past of that conflict but also intervenes in the present state of the conflict, creating a sympathetic portrait of Irish patriots and also implicitly reminding the present-day English persons of their country’s history as an oppressor of the Irish.
The poem pays tribute to the fallen Irish, but it does not (as some poems by some other Irish authors might have done) try to stir up new conflict between England and Ireland.
Thus, the poem mourns Irish deaths without explicitly calling for retaliation or revenge against England. The poem deals with people who fiercely resisted English rule, but its own tone is less fierce, less stridently resistant.

In short, the poem deals with the cultural politics of the past while also participating in the cultural politics of the present.

REQUIEM FOR THE CROPPIES

The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley...
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp...
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
A people hardly marching... on the hike...
We found new tactics happening each day:
We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave.

Line 1-2

The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley...
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp...

The poem both opens and closes with the image of barley. This is the small amount that the fighters have gathered and that they devote their pockets to. It is closely related to them, an image of their native environment, and their reason for fighting.
The opening two lines of the poem indicate the nomadic lifestyle of the rebels, who must carry food, in the form of barley, in their coats and who have “No kitchens on the run” and few if any possibilities of setting up permanent camps show that the rebels were disorganized and hurried. Here, Heaney is stripping heroism down to its essentials - an idea and an action.

Line 3

We moved quick and sudden in our own country.

This is linked to the sense of urgency and desperation conveyed by the actions of the Croppies. They move “quick and sudden” and they work out their tactics as they go along

This shows the rebellious Irish soldiers must move quickly through their “own country”. This is highly ironic since Ireland, as dominated by England, both is and is not the “country” of the Irish.

Line 4

The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.

This shows even (or perhaps especially) Catholic priests must hide from the English
Heaney shows that their uprising is communal by including the “priest” and “tramp”

Line 5

A people hardly marching... on the hike...

“hardly marching…on the hike” describe the amateur, unprepared nature of the Croppy band.
Like many latter-day Irish “armies,” these Irishmen are not an organized, disciplined force in the truest sense at all, unlike the far more powerful and better-equipped English.

Lines 6-10

We found new tactics happening each day . . .

We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave.

“found new tactics happening each day” shows they have no real plan, but have just taken the idea of rebelling and acted on it without thinking.
They must fight with fairly primitive weapons and they even stampede cattle into the ranks of the English infantry, hoping to disrupt the superior forces they face.
Their Opponents are given no solid identity but they have “infantry”, “Cavalry”, and “Canon” (line 11) so much in comparison to the pitiful “Pike(s)” and “scythes” (line 11) that the inexperienced Croppies have.
These tactics are employed until the Irish eventually face the English in a major battle at “Vinegar Hill,”

Lines 11-12

Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.

This was thesite of a devastatingly bloody defeat for the rebels, who, encamped on the hill, were pummeled by English artillery before being assaulted head-on by English cavalry and infantry.
We see personification of the hillside that blushed. Here, the hillside is named and is coloured with the blood. It is the actions of the fighters that words are devoted to, not their thoughts.

Lines 13-14

They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave.

“they buried us without shroud or coffin” show that the enemy have absolutely no respect for the dead whatsoever.
In the poem’s final lines, the speaker brings the work full-circle, explaining how the barley seeds carried by the Irish eventually blossomed, out of the Irish graves, into new-born barley plants.
Thus, in the closing line (the “barley grew up out of the grave”) the symbol of the countryside and the image of their struggle is left behind them.
The barley, which the Croppies carried, grew into a crop at their grave, which was burned down by the Anglo-Protestants.
It is in the last line where a more uplifting, less tragic image appears. The words “the barley grew up out of our grave” show that despite, being set on fire, the barley still grew back.
This symbolizes the determined “we’ll be back” nature of the Irish, who do not give in easily.
The final line is delivered in a matter-of-fact, understated tone, merely what happened, but it modifies the mood greatly. There is no death or burial here, but growth in the summer sun.