Plaque erected to poet Ledwidge
September 1962
‘FRANCIS Ledwidge, the Poet, never left Slane; Francis Ledwidge, the man, had done so, but now he comes home again—for today the people of Slane accord him public honour and recognition, and declare to the world that he is their own,” said Rev. Peter Connolly, M.A. ( Oxon.), B.D., Professor of English Literature, Maynooth, when he unveiled a Plaque to the memory of Francis Ledwidge at the Boyne Bridge, Slane, on Sunday last.
“Almost sixty years ago,’ continued Fr. Connolly, “a young Meath lad of 16 or 17 who was working in Dublin in a grocer’s shop, could stand the city no longer. One night he slipped out of his room ; walked the 30 miles, of road from Dublin to Slane and, as the dark gave way to the dawn and light spilled from the East into the Boyne Valley, he gazed once again in delight on his native village..... Above me smokes the little town.. With the whitewashed walls and roofs of brown.”
“That is the most often told incident from the youth of Francis Ledwidge,” said Fr. Connolly; “and justly so—for it offers the key to his personality as a man and the poet. It happened, In fact, more than once; the call of his native place always proved too much for him and he could never resist it.’