Dunlavin Green

(album: The Iron Behind The Velvet - 1978)

In the year of one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight
A sorrowful tale the truth unto you I'll relate
Of thirty-six heroes to the world they were left to be seen
By a false information they were shot on Dunlavin Green

Bad luck to you Saunders their lives you sold away
You said a parade would be held on that very day
The drums they did rattle and the fifes they did sweetly play
Surrounded we were and quietly marched away

Quite easily they led us as prisoners through the town
To be shot on the plain we then were forced to lie down
Such grief and such sorrow in one place was ne'er before seen
As when the blood ran in streams down the dykes of Dunlavin Green

There is young Andy Ryan he has plenty of cause to complain
Likewise the two Duffy's who were shot down on the plain
And young Mattie Farrell whose mother distracted will run
For the loss of her own darling boy her eldest son

Bad luck to you Saunders bad luck may you never shun
That the widow's curse might melt you like snow in the sun
The cries of those orphans whose murmurs you shall never sheen
For the loss of their own dear fathers who died on the green

Some of our boys to the hills they have run away
Some of them have been shot and more have run off to sea
Michael Dwyer of the mountain has plenty of cause for the spleen
For the loss of his own dear comrades who died on the green