Re: Irish Rebel Songs (Lyrics)
De Valera
I remember the day De Valera he died
my father he just broke down and he cried
he wept like a baby for Dev was his pride
but it held me no fears and I shed no tears
for this man of our times
They say Dev was a hero in 1916
he held Boland's mill for the orange and green
he was sentenced to die with Pearse and McBride
but his birth far away let him fight another day
lucky man of our times
Chorus:
He was loved, he was hate,d he was cherished, despised
there were rivers of tears when the chieftain he died
but love him or hate him I cannot decide
what to make of old Dev this man of our times
When I was at school Christian brothers were cruel
To live off the land, eat scarce was the rule
and we fled in our droves to the Emigrants boat
we weren't free yet and we questioned respect
for this man of our times
My parents were poor and the cupboard was bare
you can't feed a child on a dream or a prayer
but the boys in Dail Eireann got rich as we pined
they were led by the chief and we had no relief
from this man of our times
Chorus:
He was loved he was hated he was cherished despised
there were rivers of tears when the chieftain he died
but love him or hate him I cannot decide
what to make of old Dev this man of our times
Now Spain had its Franco, France its De Gaulle
we had our Dev and God rest his soul
but history will judge on the man from Bruree
De Valera's lost dream our Nation unfree
its the shame of our times
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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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