Born into a time in Irish history which saw the Rising of ’98 and its aftermath of violence, Raftery witnessed the Act of Union in 1801 which resulted in the ‘Absentee Landlords' giving the ‘Middlemen’ a free hand to charge ‘rack rents’ to the tenants who lived in fear of eviction. Years before, the landowners had started to ‘enclose’ the commonages where the people were allowed free grazing for their young cattle. Secret societies such as the Whiteboys were formed by people who strongly objected to this. Raftery was on the side of these societies and praised the activities of those, who agitated for ‘fair rents’ and ‘security of tenure in their farms’. Raftery spent some months in Galway jail according to Douglas Hyde (Dúghlas de hÍde) likely for his composition of this poem. Hyde collected the song Na Buachaillí Bána in County Mayo in 1903 and published it as a song ascribed to Antaine... (continua)