A silent night, A Christmas in the trenches.
By Cormac Mac Connell.

In 1914 on Christmas Day,
on the western front the guns all died away,
And lying in the mud on bags of sand,
we heard a German sing from no-man's land.

He had a tenor voice, so clear and true,
The words were strange but every note we knew,
Ashoring or the living, dead and damned,
A German sang of peace from no-man's land.

Oh Silent night, no cannons roar,
A king of peace is born forever more,
All's calm, all's bright, All brothers hand and hand,
In 1914 in no-man's land.

They slowly left their trenches, we left ours,
Beneath tin hats the smiles bloomed like wild flowers,
With photos, ciggerattes and flasks of wine,
We built a soldiers truse on that front line,

Their singer was a lad of 21,
We begged another song before the dawn,
And sitting in the mud, blood and the fear,
He sang again the song all longed to hear,

Oh Silent night, no cannon's roar,
A king of peace is born forever more,
All's calm, All's bright, all brother's hand in hand,
Amidst smoke and rusty wire in no-man's.

and in the morning all the gun's roared in the rain,
And they killed us and we killed them again,
With baonet,bomb, bullet, gas and flame,
And neither them or us at all to blame,

There was heavy fighting throughout that day,
For one night's peace, we bloodily did pay,
At night they charged, we fought them hand to hand,
And I killed the boy who sang from no-man's land.

Oh silent night, no cannon roar,
A king of peace is born forever more,
All's calm, all's bright, all brothers hand in hand,
And that young soldier sings, and the sound of peace still rings,
While all the captains and all the kings build no-man's land,
Sleeping heavenly peace.


(lovely christmas song, recorded by Jerry lynch and Mickey MacConnell)