Kelly from Killan / the Teetotaller Songtext

von Damien Dempsey

"What's the news? What's the news?
O my bold Shelmalier,
With your long-barrelled gun of the sea?
Say what wind from the sun
Blows his messenger here
With a hymn of the dawn for the free?"
"Goodly news, goodly news,
Do I bring, Youth of Forth;
Goodly news shall you hear, Bargy man!
For the Boys march at morn
From the South to the North,
Led by Kelly, the Boy from Killanne

"Tell me who is that giant
With the gold curling hair -
He who rides at the head of your band?
Seven feet is his height,
With some inches to spare,
And he looks Iike a King in command!"
"Ah, my lads, that's the pride
Of the bold Shelmaliers,
'mong our greatest of heroes, a Man!
Fling your beavers aloft
And give three ringing cheers
For John Kelly, the Boy from Killanne!" Enniscorthy's in flames,
And old Wexford is won,
And the Barrow to-morrow we cross,
On a hill o'er the town
We have planted a gun
That will batter the gateways of Ross!
All the Forth men and Bargy men
March o'er the heath,
With brave Harvey to lead on the van;
But the foremost of all
In the grim Gap of Death
Will be Kelly, the Boy from Killanne!"

But the gold sun of Freedom
Grew darkened at Ross,
And it set by the Slaney's red waves;
And poor Wexford, stript naked,
Hung high on a cross,
And her heart pierced by traitors and slaves!
Glory O! Glory O!
To her brave sons who died
For the cause of long-down-trodden man!
Glory O! to Mount Leinster's
Own darling and pride
Dauntless Kelly, the Boy from Killanne.