The Children of `16 (Declan O'Rourke)

In Dublin town one Easter morn a hundred years ago
The Rebels led a rising from the city's GPO
Brave heroes and their enemies fell, civilians in between
And among the dead and fallen were the children of '16

Those children of the tenement slums who daily with their pals
A brazen wild brigade sprang up between the two canals
With their handcarts over cobblestone they rattled, skid and tore
Barefooted as they scavenged through the crossfire and the gore

A war zone of the capital the bombs and shelling made
And snipers' bullets pierced and whipped the sulfured April haze
There was fighting from the union to the mill above the green
And it made a great excitement for the children of '16

Six days have bid the Rebels pay a grave and bloody toll
But through their blood and martyrdom Republic soon was born
High aloft its streets and buildings now their names can e'er be seen
But still missing from the pages are the children of '16

Nor Pearse, nor Clarke, McDonagh nor the Connolly we know
Would rest were they remembered on a pedestal alone
And are they not the fathers of our nation proud and free
And our sisters and our brothers then the children of '16