Songtexte

Follow me up to Carlow
(Traditional, arr. Fáinne)

Ah Lift Mac Hugh Og your face. Stop brooding o’er the old disgrace that
Black Fitzwilliam stormed your place and drove you to the fern.
Gray said victory was sure, soon the firebrand he’d secure
until he met at Glenmalure with Fiach Mac Hugh O’Byrne.

Chorus:
Curse and swear Lord Kildare, Fiach will do what Fiach will dare.
Lord Fitzwilliam have a care for fallen is your starlow.
Up with halbert out with sword, on we’ll go by for the Lord,
Fiach Mac Hugh has given the word: “Follow me up to Carlow”

See the swords at Glen Imaal, a-flashing o’er the English Pale.
See all the children of the Gael beneath O’Byrne’s banners.
Rooster of a fighting stock, would you let a Saxon cock,
crow out upon an Irish rock; rise up and teach him manners.

Chorus

From Tassagart to Clonmore there flows a stream of Saxon gore
and great is Rory Og O’More at sending the loons to Hades.
White is sick, Grey has fled; now for Black Fitzwilliam’s head
we’ll send it over, dripping red to Queen Liza and her ladies.

Chorus

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Come out ye Black and Tans
(Traditional, arr. Fáinne)

I was born in a Dublin street where the royal drums do beat
and the loving English feet they tramped all over us
and each day and every night when my father’d come home tight,
he’d invite the neighbours outside with this chorus.

Chorus:
Oh come out ye Black and Tans, come out and fight me like a man.
Show your wives how you won medals down in Flanders.
And how the IRA made you run like hell away
from the green and lovely lanes in Killeshandra.

Come let me hear you tell how you slung the brave Parnell,
when you thought him well and truly persecuted.
Where are your sneers and jeers that you loudly let us hear,
when our heroes of ‘16 were executed.

Chorus

Let me hear you how you slew poor Arabs two by two,
Like the Zulus they had slings and bows and arrows.
How you bravely faced each one with your sixteen-pounder gun
and you’ve frightened them poor natives to their marrows.

Chorus

Well the day is closing fast and the time will soon be past,
When each yeoman will be cast aside afore us
And if the case may be well me kids will say “Godspeed!”
With a verse or two of Stephen Behan’s chorus.

Chorus