THE MOLLY MAGUIRES
F C
Make way for the Molly Maguires,
B C F
They're drinkers, they're liars, but they're men.
F C
Make way for the Molly Maguires,
B C F
You'll never see the likes of them again.

d F d
Down the mines no sunlight shines, those pits they're black as hell;
F B F C F
In modest style they do their time, it's Paddy's prison cell;
d a B C
And they curse the day they travelled far and drown their tears with a jar

So, make way for the Molly Maguires...

Backs will break and the muscles ache down there there's four times to three
Of fields afar of a womans arm just dig that bloody seam
Though they drain their bodies and their brow who dare to push them around.

So, make way for the Molly Maguires... (2x)


Note: The Molly Maguires, a secret organization of coal miners supposedly
responsible for terrorism in the anthracite coalfields of Pennsylvania
and West Virginia, U.S., in the period from 1862 to 1876. The group
named itself after a widow who led a group of Irish antilandlord
agitators in the 1840s. When poor working conditions and employment
discrimination led to acts of sabotage and terrorist assassinations by
Irish-American workers in Pennsylvania 20 years later, the "Mollies"
were blamed. The Ancient Order of Hibernians, a local Irish fraternal
association, was thought to be a front for the terrorists, and mine
owners hired James McParlan, a detective, to infiltrate the group. In a
series of sensational trials in 1875-77, McParlan's testimony resulted
in the conviction and hanging of 10 men for murder. The court
convictions, adverse publicity, and more prosperous times effected a
subsequent decline of violence in the coalfields.

(C) Encyclopaedia Britanica.

"Molly Maguires" by Phil Coulter, sung by Luke Kelly on _The
Collection_, Homespun CD
@labor @mining @Irish @American
filename[ MOLLMCG
AJS
mudcat.org

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