Re: Irish Rebel Songs (Lyrics)
Tommy Atkins
My name is Tommy Atkins I'm a soldier of the Crown
I left the unemployment queues to keep the Paddies Down
They gave me a squaddies uniform and put a rifle in my hand
And they shoved me in a regiment all bound for Ireland
They said 'Son you're a soldier and your duty is to fight
To protect and save our Empire with all Britannia's might'
But within weeks of setting foot here, I'm all but a broken man
Because neither Protestant or Catholic for Tommy Atkins gives a damn
And for some their flag is Orange and the rest their flag is Green
some shout go FUCK THE POPE!
whilst others FUCK THE QUEEN!
And my flag it has been sullied in proud Britannia's name
I aint nobody's hero, I'm just a British soldier alone, ashamed
And the Irish they don't want us and back home nobody cares
So you can stick this Northern Ireland lark
What the hell are we doing here?
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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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