“Said Hanrahan” is a poem written by the Australian bush poet John O’Brien, the pen name of Roman Catholic priest Patrick Joseph Hartigan. The poem’s earliest known publication was in July 1919 in The Catholic Press, appearing in 1921 in the anthology Around the Boree Log and Other Verses.
The poem describes the recurrent natural cycle of droughts, floods and bushfires in rural Australia as seen by “Hanrahan”, a pessimistic man of Irish descent. “‘We’ll all be rooned’, said Hanrahan”—an adage extracted from the poem—has entered the Australian English lexicon.
The poem starts with the area in the grip of a drought, the worst since “the banks went bad”; a reference to the drought and banking crisis of the early 1890s.
“If we don’t get three inches, man, Or four to break this drought, We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan, “Before the year is out.”
In time, the rains “drummed a homely tune” on “iron roof and window-pane”. The problem then changed from drought to flood. “Banker” refers to a watercourse filled from bank to bank, unusual in Australia where many watercourses are ephemeral or only intermittently full.
And every creek a banker ran, And dams filled overtop; “We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan, “If this rain doesn’t stop.”
“In God’s good time” the rain stopped and spring arrived with “harvest-hopes immense”. The “knee-deep” grass, while good for feeding livestock, brought to mind the risk of bushfire.
“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man, There will, without a doubt; We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan, “Before the year is out.”
The key refrain in the poem is “We’ll all be rooned” (“rooned” is a transcription of an Irish Australian pronunciation of “ruined”) which has entered the Australian lexicon as a dismissive response to predictions of disasters or hard times, especially those out of the control of the speakers.
We all have some possessions, collected through the years; Some bring happy memories, others bring the tears. Not many from our childhood, we didn’t bother then, We were far too busy learning and counting up to ten. When maturity came through we started to collect. Some we threw away later, the special ones we kept….
Harrow is a small town situated half-way between Melbourne and Adelaide, and the Johnny Mullagh story is a proud part of its history. The local museum features the history of Mullagh and his first XI cricket team, the first ever Australian sports team to tour the UK, and contains a life-size bronze statue of him….
I’m 87 years of age and I have realised I still have so many unanswered questions! I never found out who let the dogs out . . . the way to get to Sesame Street . . . why Dora doesn’t just use Google Maps . . . why we don’t ever see the headline…
The first NSW Military Unit with a Scottish Association was The Duke of Edinburgh’s Highlanders formed in 1868. The Unit wore a kilt of Black Watch tartan and became known as the Highland Brigade before it was disbanded in 1878, following a decline in numbers caused by curtailment of new enrolment by Sir Henry Parkes, then the Premier of…
The Atlas of the Suburbs of Sydney is a series of late-nineteenth-century commercial maps that provides a portrait of the city during a period of rapid growth and suburbanisation. It was created by Higinbotham, Robinson and Harrison, map publishers and lithographers, established in 1882 with premises in Macquarie Place. They had obtained permission to produce…
Nu-Dry, your Mechanical Laundress Clothes dryer and Automatic rinser.The turn of a tap and your clothes are rinsed and ready for the line in three minutes.No electricity. No Gas. No gears. Operates from a water tap and lasts a lifetime. Their instruction book reads . . . Your Greatest Problem is answered, Mrs. Housewife! Yes,…
