The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #27029   Message #426826
Posted By: GUEST,ced2
27-Mar-01 - 03:27 PM
Thread Name: Help: The Foggy Dew: 'Valera true'?
Subject: RE: Help: Additional Information on 'Foggy Dew'
As I suspected it is the cleaned up version that is in the database. Verse 3 is missing. That goes as follows:-

"The night gell black and the rifle's crack made perfidious albion reel, Midst the lead and hail seven tongues of flame shone out o're their lines of steel, By shining blade a prayer was said that to Ireland her sons would be true, And when morning broke sure the war flag shook out its folds o're the foggy dew."

Also in the penultimate verse there is a reference to Velera, this should be de Velera. An alternative given his complicity (as some would argue, and not without some reason) with the British in the years after partition was to sing of those who fought with Cathel Brew.

The refence to "long range guns" was to do with the British use of gun boats (destroyer?) to assist in quelling the uprising.

England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity