ST. PATRICK'S DAY

It's a cold morning with snow flurries (later pellets), leaving the daffs and forsythia shivering in the bleak sunshine. We're snug in our home, Bud asleep in his basket behind me while I am at my desk writing with a space heater at my side. 

To commemorate St. Paddy's Day, a bit a music. From the Chieftains with Sinéad O'Connor singing-"The Foggy Dew", a lament concerning the Easter Rising of 1916 which encourages Irishmen to fight for the cause of Ireland, rather than for the British Empire. From Wiki: 

The melody was based on a traditional air and the lyrics were written by Charles O'Neil. Approximately 210,000 Irishmen joined up and served in the British forces during the war. This created mixed feelings for many Irish people, particularly for those with nationalist sympathies.The1915 Battle of Gallipoli, in which many young and mainly middle-class Irishmen who had joined up were killed, turned many people against the war. The brutal response to the Rising, and the execution of its leaders that followed, marked a further turning point for many Irish people. O'Neill reflected this alienation when he wrote The Foggy Dew commemorating the few hundred brave men who had risen out against what was then the most powerful empire in the world. 

As down the glen one Easter morn
To a city fair rode I.
There armoured lines of marching men
In squadrons passed me by.
No pipe did hum, no battle drum
Did sound its loud tattoo
But the Angelus bell o'er the Liffy's swell
Rang out in the foggy dew.

Right proudly high over Dublin town
They hung out that flag of war.
'Twas better to die 'neath an Irish sky
Than at Suvla or Sud el Bar.
And from the plains of Royal Meath
Strong men came hurrying through;
While Brittania's sons with their long-range guns
Sailed in from the foggy dew.

Oh the night fell black and the rifle's crack
made perfidious Albion reel
mid the leaded rail seven tongues of flame
did shine o're the lines of steel
by each shining blade a prayer was said
that to Ireland her sons be true
when the morning broke still the war flag shook
out its fold on the foggy dew

 It was England bade our wild geese go
That small nations might be free.
Their lonely graves are by Suvla's waves
On the fringe of the grey North Sea.
But had they died by Pearse's side
Or fought with Cathal Bruagh,
Their graves we'd keep where the Fenians sleep
'Neath the shroud of the foggy dew.

But the bravest fell, and the requiem bell
Rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide
In the springing of the year.
And the world did gaze in deep amaze
At those fearless men and true
Who bore the fight that freedom's light
Might shine through the foggy dew.

Then back through that glen I rode again
and my heart with grief was sore
for I parted then with valiant men
whom I never shall see more
and back to and fro in dreams I'll go
and I'll kneel and pray for you
oh slavery fled oh glorious dead
when you fell in the foggy dew.