The Wind that Blows the Barley
The wind that blows the barley
It was a green country
Once a united nation
Living in poverty
But with its own laws,
Its rules and tradition
Farming together
Living in autarky
And independently;
We belonged to ourselves
I can't say we were happy
But can assert that we were free
The country was ruled by clans
We praised our liberty
And we honoured our gods
We played our music
And spoke our own language
Our names were Eileen,Sean,
Seamus and Fionnuala,
We survived by eating
The products of our land.
One day invaders came
And said "get out of here,
This land is ours , not yours!”
They put a British flag on our ground
Cromwell made Penal Laws
Which forbid us
To speak our language
To practise our sports
To dance our dances
To read our writers
And to gather in groups.
They tortured us
And slaughtered our families
They fired our houses
And kidnapped our children,
They forced us to cultivate
Our own land for them
And left nothing for us
We started to starve
And die from typhoid
Landlords stole our sheep
And shipped them to Britain.
Despite our weakness
We went on resisting,
Were denounced and murdered,.
They forced us speak English
Practise their religion;
Those who wouldn't submit
Were exiled far away:
They were called “the Wild Geese”
Rebellion after rebellion
We finally occupied the GPO
And proclaimed an independent Republic.
They fired at us and threw grenades into the post office.
Wounded and bleeding
We were drawn outside
To be executed
One of us on a stretcher
His body badly hurt;
They murdered him on a wheelchair
In Kilmainham jail,
He was James Connolly.
They planted Bristish families
In the territories they wanted to keep.
A free Republic was finally proclaimed
Dividing the country into two parts
In the land they had stolen
The Catholics were denied
Any right s the Protestants had.
So the war went on and on again.
They can take our goods
But not our native land
Where the shamrock grows
And the harp echoes in the peat fields.
We are a peaceful nation
We want our Éirinn back.
