When the Irish nations
spirit was so low
It depended on potatoes and not much more
But the lightness of their heart became their root
By the music that they played on bodhran, fiddle and flute.
The failure
of the potatoe crop in eighteen forty seven
Was not something that went wrong in heaven
But a final blow to break the rebel Irish spirit
Coldly planned and laid, to give the British merit.
While thousands
of Irish died of starvation
Our own farm produce was shipped out for exploitation
They died at wells, on roads and some emigrating
While landlords enjoyed their servants in waiting.
For those
lucky few who survived to reach another land
They rallied quickly to send back a helping hand
But by this time our population was cut by half
Another bloodless victory, another British laugh.
The final
strw that would rekindle the spirit to the fore
For the Irish became a legend on may a foreign shore
No more to enslaved to the cruel landlords desire
And the beginning of the end of the country squire.
Our struggle
and our plight became know and for why
And our rebels men and women furthered freedoms cry
For England is still baffled by the Irish Neptune spirit
Unbroken by internment, starvation, bullet or gibbet.
An unbroken
spirit scarred by England’s cruel reign
We seek our own spiritual healing from that famine pain
But no word of sorry from Whitehalls stiff upper lip
While the Empire goes on crumbling from the nineteen sixteen split.