Re: Irish Rebel Songs (Lyrics)
The Croppy Boy
"Good men and true, in this house do dwell,
to a stranger bouchal(boy) I pray you tell,
Is the priest at home? Or may he be seen?
I would speak a word with Father Green."
"The Priests at home, boy, and may be seen;
`Tis easy speaking with Father Green;
But you must wait `till I go and see
If the Holy Father alone may be."
The youth has entered an empty hall-
What a lonely sound has his light foot-fall!
And the gloomy chamber`s chill and bare,
With a vested priest in a lonely chair.
The youth has knelt to tell his sins,
"Nomine Dei", the youth begins
At "Mea Culpa" he beats his breast,
and in broken murmers he speaks the rest.
"At the siege of Ross did my father fall,
And at Gorey my loving brothers all;
I alone am left of my name and race,
I will go to wexford and take my place.
I cursed three times since last Easter day-
At Mass time once I went to play;
I passed the churchyard one day in haste
And forgot to pray for my mother`s rest."
"I bear no hate against living things
But I love my country above my king,
Now, Father! bless me and let me go
To die for God ordained it so."
The priest said naught, but a rustling noise,
Made the youth look up in wild surprise:
The robes were off, and in scarlet there
Sat a Yeoman captain with firey glare.
With firey glary and fury hoarse,
Instead of a blessing he breathed a curse-
"`Twas a good thought, boy, to come here and shrive,
For one short hour is your time to live"
"Upon yon river, three tenders float,
The priest`s in one - if he isn`t shot-
We hold this house for our Lord and King
And, Amen, say I may all traitors swing!"
At Geneva Barracks that young man died,
and at Passage there have his body laid.
Good people who live in peace and joy,
Breathe a prayer, shed a tear, for the Croppy Boy.
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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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