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O'connor Sinead Miscellaneous Irish Ways Irish ways and Irish Laws by John Gibbs Once upon a time there was Irish Ways and Irish Laws Villages of Irish blood Waking to the morning Then the Vikings came around (4) Turned us up and turned us down Started building boats and towns They tried to change our living They tried to change our living Cromwell and his soldiers came (1) Started centuries of shame But they would not make us turn (2) We are a river flowing We're a river flowing Again, again the soldiers came Burnt our houses stole our grain Shot the farmers in the fields Working for a living Working for a living 800 years we have been down (3) The secrets of the water sound Has kept the spirit of a man Above the pain descending Above the pain descending Today the struggle carries on I wonder will I live so long To see the gates being opened up (4) To a people and their freedom A people and their freedom Notes (1) Oliver Cromwell landed in Ireland in August 1649 at the head of a huge army, by May 1650 he had crushed opposition in all but the West. (By 1652 the Irish population had fallen to .7 m. In 1641 it had been 1.5 m. By 1660 .5 m cattle were being exported annually to England.) (2) Both Cromwell's and subsequent colonisation campaigns used the twin techniques of "planting" English and Scotish settlers and forcing some locals to change or "Turn" their religion to the Protestant faith. So here he uses the ambiguity of the term "turn" to echo both the image of the unbowed Irish peasant and a metaphor for Irish History flowing like a un-turnable river. (3) The first viking invasions were in the 1100's. (4) "Gates" here evokes both images of the be-sieged walled cities of the 17th century and also of the present day prison camps in the North of Ireland which at the time the song was being written (in the late 1970's early 1980's) were the subject of much political campaigning including Hunger Strikes by the inmates. --------------------------------------------------------- Send Sinead questions/info to boarjas@elof.iit.edu and ask for the latest copy of the discography. --------------------------------------------------------- |
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