Qualtrough

Articles from the Isle of Man

Qualtrough from the Isle of Man

(With apologies to the Kelly family)

From Greenland’s icy mountains
To India’s coral strand;
Along the Colorado
And across the Rio Grande
From Mexico to Mandalay,
Hong Kong to Singapore;
On the banks of the Brahmaputra,
And the hills of Bangalore;
From Cleveland in Ohio
To San Francisco Bay
There’s a world-wide race of rovers
You may come upon some day

You may find them setting fur traps
On the snow line in Alaska,
You may find them driving combines
In the cornbelt of Nebraska,
You may find them drilling oil wells
In the sand of Az-Zahran
And you’ll find there name is Qualtrough,
And they’re from the Isle of Man.

In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,
In Vancouver and St.John,
From Yellowknife to Gypsumville,
From Goosebay to Edmonton;
In Alberta and Ontario,
In logging camps and mines,
In Winnepeg and Ottawa,
In the glare of neon signs
In a thousand northern settlements
On a thousand lakeside shores,
Behind the hardware counters
Of a thousand general stores.

In Wollongong and Woomera,
In Melbourne and Mackay,
In Broken Hill and Brisbane,
In Finke and Flinders Bay;
And you’ll find them up in Arnhem Land,
Yamba, or Yarraloola,
Or riding on a train on the Nullabor Plain
From Naretba to Tarcoola,
You may find them riding boundaries
With horse and tucker bag,
Or camping out in Coopers Creek
With billy can and swag,
You may find them driving transports
Through the blue to Alice Springs
You may find them flying doctors
Who haven’t got their wings.
You may find them putting pineapples
And peaches in a can,
And you’ll find their name is Qualtrough.
And they’re from the Isle of Man

You may find them on a thousand ships
Of a thousand shapes and sorts
That take a thousand cargoes
To a thousand foreign ports.
From London, Glasgow, Liverpool,
Southampton, Bristol, Hull,
To Hamburg, Stockholm, Helsinki,
Marseilles and Istanbul.
To Freetown, Lagos, Capetown,
Manilla, Port of Spain,
Kuwait, Colombo, Buenos Aires,
Christchurch – and back again.

You may find them on the bridges
Of a thousand salt-stained Tramps,
Or checking in the engine rooms
Oil pressures, fuels and amps.
Or on liners, or on tankers,
Wherever ships may sail
Behind the canvas dodgers
Of many a ship’s taffrail.
You may find them on the Oceans,
And on all Seven Seas,
From the Arctic to Antarctica –
What latitude you please.
You may find them in the tropics,
And if you look beneath the tan
You’ll find the name is Qualtrough
And they’re from the Isle of Man

Or you’ll find the name is Callow,
Caley, Callin, Cain
Christian, Corlett, Corrin,
Cowley, Cowell, or Craine.
Or you’ll find the name is Faragher
Or Garrett, or Kaneen,
Kennaugh, Kewley, or Kerruish,
Kissack, Kneale or Kneen.
Or you’ll find their name is Mylchreest
Kelly, Quine, or Quayle,
Quilliam, Quilleash, Quiggin
Shimmin, Quirk, or Sayle.

But no matter what the name is
They share a common birth,
For they all hail from the Island
That’s the grandest place on earth.
And like the cushags blooming in the fields
From Rushen to Lezayre
Those omnipresent Manxmen
Are blooming everywhere.

Author unknown

Submitted by Elizabeth Feisst, Bundaberg, Australia. (January 2001)