I Was Raised On Rebel Music Poem by Francis Duggan

I Was Raised On Rebel Music



I was raised on rebel music and rebel verse and song
That stirred up patriotic feelings but could not right a past wrong
And what now does it matter when all is said and done
Forget the long dead heroes and battles lost and won.

The ballad of Robert Emmett and Wolfe Tone's lonely grave
Were such men quite foolhardy or were they truly brave?
To be hung drawn and quartered for your beliefs is not a pleasant thing
And little value to them now if others of them sing.

The ballad of Sir Roger Casement also known as The Lonely Banna Strand
Executed as a traitor to his Nation but a hero in Ireland
A hero to one can be a villian to another at least that's what they say
And for love of his adopted Country with his life he had to pay.

I was raised on rebel songs and stories such as those men of ninety eight
And in every war that has been fought new heroes they create
But what value are dead heroes they are helpless where they lay
And their too brief lives were wasted seeing war is still waged today.

The founders of the Land League live in Irish history
Parnell and Michael Davitt I learned of their bravery
John Mitchel the Young Ireland leader by boat transported many a sea mile
To Van Diemen's Land in Australia to imprisonment and exile.

I was raised on rebel music and rebel verse and song
Of brave young men who died for their Country to such a background I belong
But I never wished to emulate them never even as a boy
I would rather grow to be an old man and of natural causes die

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