Re: Irish Rebel Songs (Lyrics)
Rifles of the IRA
In nineteen hundred and sixteen,
The Forces of the Crown,
To Capture Orange, White and Green,
Bombarded Dublin Town,
But in twenty one, Britannia's sons,
Were forced to earn their pay,
When the Black and Tans, like lightning ran
From the rifles of the IRA
They burned their way through Munster
and laid Leinster on the rack,
Through Connaught and through Ulster,
Marched those men in brown and black,
They shot down wives and children,
In their own barbaric way,
Then the Black and Tans, like lightning ran
From the rifles of the IRA
They hanged young Kevin Barry high
A lad of eighteen years
Our city's flames lit up the sky,
Our brave men knew no fear,
The Cork Brigade with handgrenades,
in ambush laid in wait,
then the Black and Tans, like lightning ran
From the rifles of the IRA
The Tans were taken out and shot,
By a brave and fearless group,
Sean Tracey, Denny Lacey and Tom Barry's gallant crew,
We're not free yet and won't forget until our dying day,
when the Black and Tans, like lightning ran,
From the Rifles of the IRA
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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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