The Three Loaves Of Bread

(Traditional)

This song was found, handwritten, in the back of an old book at Ned Hennessey’s in Merasheen. It was found by Ned’s daughter, Lucy, who put her own air on it and sang it often at house parties and concerts. The Three Loaves Of Bread is a very moving song and is sung here by Lucy (Hennessey) Counsel of Merasheen.

She stood at the bar of justice, a creature worn and wild,
In form too small for a woman, in features too old for a child.
Well a look so worn and pathetic, was stamped on her pale young face,
He’d seen long years of suffering, must have left that silent grace.

“Your name?” said the judge as he eyed her, with kindly look but grim,
“I’m Mary McGuire if you please sir”,  “And your age?”, “Sir I turned fifteen”.
Well very and then from a paper, he slowly and gravely read,
“You’re charged here I’m sorry to say it, for stealing three loaves of bread”.

“I’ll tell you how it was sir, my father and mother are dead,
The young ones cried and shivered, little John he asked me for bread.
So what was I to do sir, I am guilty but do not condemn,
I took, or oh was it stealing, the bread to give to them”.

Every man in the court room, grey haired and thoughtless youth
knew as he looked upon her that the prisoner spoke the truth.
And out from their pockets came kerchiefs, and from their eyes sprang tears,
And out from old faded wallets, came treasures horded for years.

The judges face was strange then, the strangest you ever saw,
As he cleared his voice in the moment and murmured something about the law.
For one so learned in such matters, so wise in dealing with men,
It seemed on a simple question, he was sorely puzzled just then.

But no one blamed him or wondered, when at last these words they heard,
“The sentence of this young prisoner, is for the present deferred”.
And no one blamed him or wondered, when he went to her and smiled,
And tenderly left from the court room, himself and the innocent child.

Editor's note: published as "Guilty or Not Guilty" in World's Best Poetry, Volume III in 1904.