Oh Ireland Mother Ireland Poem by Francis Duggan

Oh Ireland Mother Ireland brave men for you have been shot
But are you worth one cup of human blood you most certainly are not
Your noble sons who fought for you by British guns were slain
But what value to a dead hero is worthless immortal name.

If those noble men who died for you could have looked into future day
I am sure that they would have ended life in a much more natural way
Our politicians have betrayed them and their deaths have been in vain
As we are in the Common Market now and our sovereign rights sold down the drain.

In Ireland today the rich get richer and the poor getting more poor
As they struggle for survival like rats in an enclosed sewer
What with work a getting scarcer and the cost of living high
For the working class of Ireland I can see no future joy.

Oh Ireland Mother Ireland your fields are evergreen
You are the greenest Land on all God's Earth, the World beauty queen
Ah but Ireland would I die for you I most certainly would not
I would rather die the natural way and be buried and forgot.