Come all ye brave United Men, who'd right your country's wrong I'll sing to you a verse or two, which won't detain
you long. In old Iveleary by the hills my youthful days passed by; The famine came and filled the graves — I saw my
father die.
The bailiff with the `notice' came — the bit of ground was gone — I saw the rooftree in a flame — the
crowbar work was done.
With neither house nor bed nor bread, the Workhouse was my doom; And on my jacket soon I read: `The
Union of Macroom.'
My mother died of broken heart; my uncle from the town Brought for her a horse and cart and buried her in Gleown.
I
joined the `Red Coats' then — mo leir! what would my father say? And I was sent in one short year on service to Bombay.
I thought to be a pauper was the greatest human curse, But fighting in a robber's cause — I felt it ten times worse.
I helped to plunder and enslave those tribes of India's sons; And many a sultry day I spent blowing Sepoys from our guns.
I told those sins to Father Ned — the murder and the booty; They were not sins for me, he said, I only did my duty.
And when the 'duty' there was done, a journey home I made, To find my friends all dead and gone; I joined the Pope's Brigade.
I got but medals on my breast for serving in this campaign; And next I'm found in the far, far West, a-soldiering again.
With famous Captain Billy 0 I joined the Fenian band, And swore one day to strike a blow to free my native land.
Back in this down-trod isle again, where vultures drink our blood, Friends are scattered, starved or slain — I'm
told I'm cursed by God; That I could swear my life-long days to serve from Pole to Pole, In any other cause but this, with
safety to my soul!
No sin to kill for English greed in some far foreign clime, How can it be that patriot love in Ireland is a crime?
How
can it be by (god's decree I'm cursed, outlawed and banned Because I swore one day to free, my trampled native land?
