Random Ramblings from a Republican
Friday, May 21, 2004
The Men of 81
The mists of time will honour this, the year of ‘81
When ten brave gallant Irishmen, a hunger-strike begun,
You might as well have shot them like the men of Easter week,
You knew they wouldn’t bend their knee, you knew they wouldn’t break
You stand accused of murder their blood is on your hands,
Of Francis Hughes, Ray McCreesh, Joe McDonnell, Bobby Sands,
Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Thomas McElwee,
Mickey Divine, Patsy O’Hara and Keiron Doherty.
Time will never sanctify the reasons why,
In prison cells, in lonely hells our hunger-strikers died
Show me an English man who’d starve until he died,
But Irishmen have done it with honour and with pride.
800 years is far too long the time has come to leave,
You’ve butchered and you’ve plundered, you’ve murdered and deceived,
But we promise we will never give up our human rights
To defend the men of ’81 in their final lonely fight.
