The Puddler Poet

The Puddler Poet, the life times and poetry of Michael McGovern

Written by the late Jim Fahy of RTE,  this is the biography of Michael McGovern 1847-1933. With 3 months education in a local hedge school in Williamstown, Co Galway he emigrated to Sheffield UK, and became a puddler in a steel mill. A puddler had the back breaking work of stirring pig iron in a blazing furnace, having the eye to know when the molten iron had come ‘to bloom’ and rid of impurities to become wrought iron. There he also began taking an active role in the Irish political turmoil of the era by joining the IRB, was smuggled from Liverpool to USA when police were closing in, worked in Allentown PA as a puddler and finally settled in Youngstown Ohio. There he started to write poetry after he finished his daily grind, publishing one book of poems, “Labor Lyrics and other Poems” in 1899. He was a forceful voice for the working man and his rights, whilst also writing on the beauty of nature, love, and his native country, Ireland. He wrote in excess of 1,500 poems which were published in American newspapers. He was also an artist. In eloquent prose, the late Jim Fahy captures the essence of the man and outlines the various facets of his life from his birth in the midst of the great Famine, his marriage and political involvement in UK, his life in USA, with its sadness at losing 9 of his 13 children, to the joys of writing poetry, his involvement with DeValera’s visit in 1919, his views on politics and religion, his work as a union man but most of all his poetry, with Jim seamlessly interweaving many of McGoverns poems, relevant to the subject matter, throughout the book.