This may be the best song re the hunger strike (I make no political comment about the situation in Ireland past, present, or future)
The Ballad Of Joe McDonnell.
Oh my name is Joe McDonnell, from Belfast town I came, a city I will never see again For it was in the town of Belfast, I spent many happy days, I love that town in oh so many ways It was there I spent my childhood, and I found for me a wife, I then set out to make for her a life Oh but all my old ambitions, met with bitterness and hate, I found myself inside a prison gate
And you dare to call me a terrorist, while you look down your gun When I think on all the deeds that you have done You have troubled many nations, divided many lands You have terrorised their people, you rule with an iron hand You have brought this reign of terror to my land
Through the many months of internment in the Maidstone and the Maze, I thought about my land throughout those days Why my country was divided, why I was trapped in jail, in-prisoned without crime or without trial And although I love my country, I am not a bitter man, but I see cruelty and injustice at first hand So on that fatal morning, I shook both freedoms hands, for right or wrong I tried to free my land
Then one cold October morning, trapped in a lions den, I found myself in prison once again I was escorted to the h-blocks, for fourteen years or more, on the blanketed conditions they were poor So a hunger strike we did commence, for the dignity of man, but it seems that no-one cared or gave a damn But now I am a saddened man, I watched my comrades die, if only people cared or wondered why
no chorus
May god shine on you Bobby Sands, for the courage that you have shown, may your glory and your name be widely known And Francis Hughes, and Ray McCreesh, who died unselfishly, Patsy O'Hara, the next in line is me And those who come behind me, may your courage be the same, and pray to god my life is not in vain Oh sad and bitter was the year of Ninteen Eighty-One, for everything I've lost and nothing's won
Oh my name is Joe McDonnell, from Belfast town I came, a city I will never see again