Lyr Req: Jack Edwards - Lightly Tap...

Subject: Lyr Req: Jack Edwards - Lightly Tap...
From: GUEST,Tadhg Williams
Date: 15 Nov 24 - 07:36 AM

Hi folks,
I'm looking for the lyrics of a song written about Jack Edwards, a Republican prisoner from Waterford, shot in Kilkenny Jail during the Civil War.

His young brother, Frank Edwards, is well known for his involvement in the Republican Congress, fighting with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, and his role in the communist movement in Ireland thereafter. In his account, documented in Uinseann Mac Eoin's 'Survivors', he speaks of the influence of his brother and quotes a verse from a song written about him:

March with stately step and solemn,
Lightly tap the muffled drum,
For the gloom around is now cast
There’s a soldier coming home.
Make this grave upon the hillside,
Where our soldier lad will lie.
Let us wipe out fault and fashion
And when Freedom’s day will come.
We will prove ourselves in action
As Jack Edwards often done.

I have no more details on the song - I don't know who the author is, or if a recorded version exists. Apparently it is to be sang to the tune of Kevin Barry. If anybody has the rest of the lyrics, I would be very grateful, and it is a song I would love to perform.
Many thanks,
Tadhg