The One Hundred Year Prayer
Do you remember the days,Back when Yeats wrote his great poems and plays,When big Jim Larkin gave himself a sore throat,While the poor Shinners only wanted a vote.
Cast yourself back to that Easter Morn,When the most terrible of beauties was born,It is here that the lily stood most bright,As O Connell Street burned, a new fire would take light.
Green white orange gold,From our bogs and bushes we began to take hold,Out of this fire and brimstone our country was born,And in our wee little cottages or country was born.
Buried deep within our own personal reason,We created our own forms of treason,With the crown still upon our heads,We set out to take down the last remaining threads.
From here on in our world grew static,All the promises and pledges stuck in the attic,While up in Dublin the flat caps reigned,With each passing day the lily grew more stained.
Now, the lily was put away to bed,For we only had our prayers left to be said,And off we went each day to work,In our low lie farmland, down amongst the murk.
Cast yourself back to that summer of sixty nine,When we rioted and revolted in weather so fine,Yet, on the streets with every coming clash,Our newfound freedom was gone in a flash,
Where you in amongst the herd,When we where thrown in cells for reasons so absurd,Or when the soldiers let their rifles run,And ruin thirteen innocents of their poor funSoon the country was rattled down to its core,Finally people where forced to deal with what was on their front door,But for every march and flag we held so high,Away in the blocks another would soon die.
Where were you when the children wept,While in some bog land the Gardaí swept,What was it but another empty bed,Another name amongst the dead.
Out of the blood and bombs and internal rage,Would come the suits which would be our eternal cage,Yet, bombs and bombs kept on falling,As Downing Street burned and London was calling.
One hundred years have come and past,This great fire we knew would not last,Now, stuck down in some long forgotten drain,The lonely little lily left out in the rain.