I am a proud young Irishman, In Ulster's Hills my life began; A happy boy through green fields ran; I kept God's and Man's Laws. But when my age was barely ten My country's wrongs were told again By tens of thousands marching men And my heart stirred to the cause.
So I'll wear no convict's uniform Nor meekly serve my time That Britain might brand Ireland's fight Eight hundred years of crime
I learned of centuries of strife, of cruel laws, injustice rife; I saw now in my own young life The fruits of foreign sway: Protestors threatened, tortured, maimed, Divisions nutured, passions flamed, Outrage provoked, right's cause defamed; That is the conqueror's way
Descended from proud Connacht clan, Concannon served cruel Britain's plan; Man's inhumanity to man Had spawned a trusty slave. No strangers are these bolts and locks, No new design these dark H-Blocks, Black Cromwell lives while Mason stalks; The bully taunts the brave
Does Britain need a thousand years Of protest, riot, death and tears Or will this past decade of fears Of eighty decades spell an end to Ireland's agony, New hope for human dignity; And will this last obscenity Be this grim H-Block cell?