I am a proud young Irishman
From Ulster's hills my life began
A happy boy through green fields ran
And I 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 stared to their cause.
(chorus)
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland's fight
800 Years of crime
I learned of centuries of strife
Of cruel laws injustice rife
And I saw now in my own young life
The fruits of foreign sway
Protesters threatened, tortured, maimed
Divisions nurtured passions flamed
Outrage prevoked rights cause defamed
This is the conqueror's ways
chorus
Descendant's of proud Connaught clan
Concannon served cruel Britain's plan
Man's inhumanity to man
Had spawned a trusty slave
No strangers are these bolts and locks
No new design these dark H-Blocks
Cruel Cromwell lives while Mason stalks
The bully taunts the brave
chorus
Does Britain need one thousand years
Of protest, riots, death and tears
Or will this last decade of fears
Of 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
From Ulster's hills my life began
A happy boy through green fields ran
And I 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 stared to their cause.
(chorus)
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland's fight
800 Years of crime
I learned of centuries of strife
Of cruel laws injustice rife
And I saw now in my own young life
The fruits of foreign sway
Protesters threatened, tortured, maimed
Divisions nurtured passions flamed
Outrage prevoked rights cause defamed
This is the conqueror's ways
chorus
Descendant's of proud Connaught clan
Concannon served cruel Britain's plan
Man's inhumanity to man
Had spawned a trusty slave
No strangers are these bolts and locks
No new design these dark H-Blocks
Cruel Cromwell lives while Mason stalks
The bully taunts the brave
chorus
Does Britain need one thousand years
Of protest, riots, death and tears
Or will this last decade of fears
Of 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