Dunlavin Green - Christy Moore

In the year of one thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight

A sorrowful tale the truth unto you I’ll relate

Of thirty-six heroes to the world they were left to be seen

By a false information they were shot on Dunlavin Green

Bad luck to you Saunders their lives you sold away

You said a parade would be held on that very day

The drums they did rattle and the fifes they did sweetly play

Surrounded we were and quietly marched away

Quite easily they led us as prisoners through the town

To be shot on the plain we then were forced to lie down

Such grief and such sorrow in one place was ne’er before seen

As when the blood ran in streams down the dykes of Dunlavin Green

There is young Andy Ryan he has plenty of cause to complain

Likewise the two Duffy’s who were shot down on the plain

And young Mattie Farrell whose mother distracted will run

For the loss of her own darling boy her eldest son

Bad luck to you Saunders bad luck may you never shun

That the widow’s curse might melt you like snow in the sun

The cries of those orphans whose murmurs you shall never sheen

For the loss of their own dear fathers who died on the green

Some of our boys to the hills they have run away

Some of them have been shot and more have run off to sea

Michael Dwyer of the mountain has plenty of cause for the spleen

For the loss of his own dear comrades who died on the green