Re: Irish Rebel Songs (Lyrics)
Henry Joy McCracken
An Ulster man I an proud to say from the Antrim Glens I come
Although I labored by the sea I followed fife and drum
I have heard the martial tramp of men; I've seen men fight and die
Ah! lads I well remember when I followed Henry Joy
I pulled my boat up from the sea I hid my sail away
I hung my nets on a greenwood tree and I scanned the moonlit bay
The boys were out, and the "Redcoats" too - I kissed my wife good-bye
And in the shade of the greenwood glade, sure I followed Henry Joy
In Antrim Town the tyrant stood, he tore our ranks with ball
But with a cheer and a pike to clear we swept the o'er the wall
Our pikes and sabers flashed that day - we won, but lost, ah why
No matter lads, I fought beside, and shielded Henry Joy
Ah! boys, for Ireland's cause we fought, for her and home we bled
Though pikes were few still our hearts beat true, and five to one lay dead
But many a lassie mourned her lad and mother mourned her boy
For youth was strong in that gallant throng, who followed Henry Joy
In Belfast Town they built a tree, and the Redcoats mustered there
I watched them come at the beat of the drum, rolled out from the barrack square
He kissed his sister and went aloft, he bade a last good-bye
"My God, he died," sure I turned and cried, "They have murdered Henry Joy!"
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The traditions of the Irish people are the oldest of any race in Europe north and west of the Alps, and they themselves are the longest settled on their own soil
- Edmund Curtis (A History of Ireland: From Earliest Times to 1922)
The Irish are one of the most ancient nations that I know of at this end of the world, and are from as mighty a race as the world ever brought forth.
For it is certain that Ireland hath had the use of letters very anciently and long before England; that they had letters anciently is nothing doubtful, for the Saxons of England are said to have their letters and learning, and learned men, from the Irish.
- Edmund Spenser (writer, and British Government Official in Ireland, AD 1596).
The renaissance began in Ireland seven hundred years before it was known in Italy. And Armagh, the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, was at one time the metropolis of civilisation.
- Arsene Darmesteter, Professor of Old French and Literature
Ireland can indeed lay claim to a great past; she can not only boast of having been the birthplace and abode of high culture in the fifth and sixth centuries . . . but also of having made strenous efforts in the seventh and up to the tenth century to spread her learning among the German and Romance peoples, thus forming the actual fountain of our present continental civilisation.
- Heinrich Zimmer, Professor of Celtic and Sanskrit, Member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences
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