Slievenamon

This song, which has a magical tune, refers to a local insurrection
in 1798. It fills in the historical picture of a people now left
leaderless and bewildered.

It is my sorrow that this day’s troubles
  Poor Irishmen so sore did strike,
Because our tyrants are laughing at us,
  And say they fear neither fork nor pike;
Our Major never came to lead us,
  We had no orders and drifted on
As you’d send a drover with a cow to the fair
  On the sunny side of Slievenamon.

Ross was the place we were defeated,
  There we left many a pikeman dead,
Little children burned to ashes,
  Women in holes and ditches hid.
But I promise you the men that slew them
  We’ll meet them yet with pike and gun,
And we’ll drive the yeomen in flight before us
  When we pay them back on Slievenamon.

The sturdy Frenchman with ships in order
  Beneath sharp masts is long at sea;
They’re always saying they will come to Ireland,
  And they will set the Irish free.
Light as a blackbird on a green bough swinging
  Would be my heart if the French would come—
O the broken ranks and the trumpets ringing
  On the sunny side of Slievenamon!


Source: O'Connor, Frank (tr); Kings, Lords, & Commons: An Anthology
from the Irish; 1962; London; Macmillan & Co; p.122