Francis Sylvester Mahony, better known as Father Prout, was born in Cork in 1804. Though he was a Jesuit priest, he was more of a literatus than a man of God. He is the author of the famous “Reliques of Father Prout,” which he wrote for Frazer’s Magazine. Later he was the Rome correspondent for the Daily News and the Paris correspondent of the Globe. He died in Paris in 1866. Among his poems the following is the only one worth mention:

With deep affection and recollection
I often think of those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would in the days of childhood
Fling round my cradle their magic spells.
On this I ponder, where’er I wander,
And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

I have heard bells chiming full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine;
While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate,
But all their music spoke naught like thine;
For memory dwelling on each proud swelling
Of thy belfry knelling its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

I have heard bells tolling “old Adrian’s mole” in,
Their thunder rolling from the Vatican,
And cymbals glorious, swinging uproarious,
In the gorgeous turrets of Notre Dame;
But thy sounds were sweeter than the dome of Peter
Flings o’er the Tiber, pealing solemnly.
O! the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

There’s a bell in Moscow, while on tower and kiosko
In St. Sophia the Turkman gets,
And loud in air calls men to prayer
From the tapering summit of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom I freely grant ’em,
But there’s an anthem more dear to me;
’Tis the bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.