Rape and plunder was your deed We lost a million to the seas

I believe this was written by Pete Cavanagh from Derry – long read but well worth it!

I see this hype that’s taking up the news
About a certain sportsman and his well-known views
Maybe now I could shed some light
On a certain country and it’s plight.
Well you burned all our churches but we’ll say no more
And cut to 1711, Donegal Shore.
A priest said Mass upon a soggy leafy Floor.

Red Coats came, his head chopped off
All because he was a man of the cloth.
Dander across that ancient bridge
Wolfe Tone was captured just over the ridge
The Forefather of republicanism who sliced his own throat, so the English soldiers couldn’t kill him and gloat.

The famine came, made worse by your British GENOCIDE, because you did not help
A million starved, you assisted their death.
Up and down our ancient land “let them starve” was your command.
Penal laws with brutal force
Your ways and laws tried to endorse.
Rape and plunder was your deed
We lost a million to the seas.

Time ticked on like so it must
You thought that you had had us sussed.
Then came Easter 1916, the flag was hoisted, emerald green
We’d serve no Kaiser or foreign King.
Rebellion crushed, you shot our men
But you knew that we’d be back again.

Black and Tans and Auxies too
Burned our towns and raped a few.
English soldiers on Irish soil made life a chore, enslaved in toil.
The IRA then came about, with one objective
To get you out!

The Treaty came in 21’ some thought we lost and others won.
Divided our country, split in two
Freedom for them, but not us few.
Gerrymandering, Unionist rule, a Protestant state, the ridicule.
A Unionist police force, no Catholic vote.
Thousands again boarded the boats.

Dogs of war in the RUC, ran amok on sectarian sprees.
The summer of love in 69’
But not for Derry nor Ardoyne.
Catholic poverty, no rights or jobs
Bombay Street burned to the ground by loyalist mobs.

The RUC then had to retreat; the people of Derry had them beat.
They left the Bogside in throngs and swoops, and then came the boats carrying your troops.
A welcome at first was indeed rolled out, your intentions then well, we had our doubts.

Seamus Cusack, Dessie Beattie, you shot them dead, unarmed in our city.
Francy McCloskey, Sammy Devenney, shot and beaten, the first of many.
Civil Rights protesters attacked and killed
Internment came, new prisons built.

Bombay Street, Duke Street, Bloody Sunday.
‘No-go Zones’ and Robert Lundy.
Thirteen people in one day
Your army killed and then ran away.

Most of them were in their teens, their killers decorated and honoured by your queen.
Rubber bullets, C.S gas, petrol bombs and broken glass.
Hunger Strikes “defeat the croppy”

Tell me now if I’m getting too soppy
But this is why I’ll not wear your poppy.

British soldiers have long disgraced
Their nation’s reputation with the Irish race.
So pin that poppy to your breast
But don’t do it on Irish behest.
We’ll let you remember your ‘gallant’ dead
And we’ll remember what they done here instead.