FREEDOM

Lord we have prayed for freedom nigh to a thousand years,

Making to thee an Offering, Anguish and Blood and Tears.

Centuries crushed in bondage, sold, by our own betrayed

If this is the price of freedom, Lord, we have surely paid.

Long is the list of martyrs, who died, that we might be free.

Pledging their love to Ireland commending their souls to Thee

Meeting the foeman proudly, scaffold or battle-plain,

Praying, May God Save Ireland, Lord, did they pray in vain?

Now to the land of Eireann, freedom at last has come,

Bringing the sun to many; casting a cloud o’er some.

For ours is a land divided, wrought by the guile of Knaves

The men of the South have freedom while we of the North are slaves.

Lord, I have sorely puzzled doubts upon every hand,

Yet knowing thy ways are many, how would I understand?

Still, I would ask a question, tho’ it be out of place

Lord, can it be that freedom is ill for the Irish race?

Over the so-called Border, where Ireland’s sons are free

Our brothers are sorely altered, not what they used to be.

They who by England’s power, refused to be “civilised”

Now with the gift of freedom, make haste to be Anglicised.

Speaking the slang of London, apeing their English ways,

Reading their filthy newsprint, playing their mirthless plays

Dancing their foolish dances, singing their ribald songs.

Lord can a true man do this, and remember his Country’s wrongs?

Shall we of the North be like them; granting us freedom’s crown

Mocking our Country’s customs, running our language down.

Making of Pearse a liar, forgetting the Fenian graves,

If this is the price of freedom, Lord let us still be slaves.​