The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #65057   Message #1068487
Posted By: GUEST,Martin Ryan
09-Dec-03 - 12:11 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: The Bold Fenian Men
Subject: Lyr Add: BOLD FENIAN MEN (Michael Scanlan)
Kearney's song was originally entitled "Down By the Glenside" - and usually still is.

The other "Bold Fenian Men" was written mid 19C. by Michael Scanlan, about whom I came across the following (on his parish website!):
******************
Michael Scanlan was born in Castlemahon in 1833 and died in 1917. During the Great Famine, when Michael was fifteen years old, he left with his family for America. Scanlan worked in a number of different jobs in America before joining the State Department in Washington, where he became the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics.
Together with other Irish emigrants, he founded a paper called "The Irish Republic" in 1867. This paper was the mouthpiece of the Fenian organisation. Michael was a renowned writer and poet. He wrote the following poem, which Limerick historian Mainchín Seoighe described as 'the great anthem of the [Fenian] movement' in his book "County Limerick - its people and places".:
See who came over the red-blossomed heather,
Their green banners kissing the pure mountain air;
Heads erect, eyes to front, stepping proudly together,
Sure Freedom sits throned on each proud spirit there.
Down the hills twining
Their blessed steel shining.
Like rivers of beauty that flow from each glen,
From mountain and valley
Tis Liberty's rally -
Out and make way for the bold Fenian men!

We don't appear to have a full set of words - they're freely available on the web. The tune is often played as a march - but you rearely hear the song itself nowaadays.

Regards