What Did They Die For Poem by Francis Duggan

For Ireland and it's culture and it's flag of gold, white and green
They were brave men who were executed in Dublin in Easter of nineteen sixteen
As prisoners of the British Government they died under British gunfire
But generation of freedom fighters Worldwide these brave Irish martyrs did inspire

Yet one must ask what did they die for not for so called Irish country music one must say
For this is not of Irish culture it's source is of the U S of A
And rock and pop not of Irish culture their sources are from Lands elsewhere
The brave young men who died for Ireland did not die for the big World out there

And they did not die for an Ireland to be ruled by big governments of the E U
To be bossed by their bosses in Brussels like bosses telling their workers what to do
Like on how they should run their economy it was because of British rule in Ireland they died
They would see the people of twenty first century Ireland as a people who have lost their sense of National pride

But none can see that far into the future if they could have seen a century ahead
They would not have had an Easter Rising and be of the glorified dead
If they could have looked into the future they would have lived on to die old and gray
The Ireland that they gave their lives for is not the Ireland of today

That they visualized a different Ireland than to the Ireland we know of seems true to say
Whose so called Irish country music has it's source in a Land far away
Though with my way of thinking on this one i know many would disagree
But each to their own as they do say for this is how it ought to be.