H-BLOCK SONG

I am a proud young Irishman,
In Ulster's hills my life began,
A happy boy through green fields ran,
And 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.

CHORUS
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 learnt of centuries of strife,
Of cruel laws, injustice rife,
I saw now in my own young life,
The fruits of foreign sway,
Protested, threatened, tortued, maimed,
Division nurtured, passions flamed,
Outrage provoked, right's cause defamed,
This is the conqueror's way.

Descendant of proud Connaught clan,
Concannon serves cruel Britain's plan,
Man's inhumanity to man,
Has found a trusty slave,
No strangers are these bolts and locks,
No new design these dark H-Blocks,
Cruel Cromwell walks, while Thatcher stalks,
The bully taunts the brave.

Does Britain need a thousand years,
Of protest, riots, death and tears,
Or will this past decade of fears,
To eighty decades spell,
An end to Ireland's agony,
New hope for human dignity,
And will the last obscenity,
Be this grim H-Block cell?

Source: "Songs of Resistance, 1968-1982", credited to Francie Brolly.