PIERY WALL KNOCKNAREE
Piery Wall, lived in Knocknaree in the Nire Valley, locally he was called the Bard of Knocknaree. Piery’s sharp wit and rhyming mastery made him both famous and a little feared in case you got on the wrong side of his wit. Piery also owned a famous safe house which was used in the War of Independence and the Civil war. Between February and April 1923, Gen. Liam Lynch stayed in Piery’s house at least twice if not three times. He stayed there when travelling from Dublin to Ballingeary in Cork. He may have stayed there during the Executive meeting in March. Lynch left the Nire in March and headed to Poulacapple, Tipperary, for a number of days before returning again to Piery Wall’s in Knocknaree on 7th April 1923.
Piery wrote many poems one was called Twenty to Four it was about going to a party at Meskells in Frehans, where Piery gets soaked crossing the Tar River, the final verse went:
“Now if every I visit
Old Frehans again
With Meskells I will anchor
If it runs up to ten
For I will remember
Within my heart’s core
The ninth of December
And twenty to four.”
The Nire valley from Knocknaree and Piery Wall”
