‘Dark Rosaleen’ by James Clarence Mangan
For there was lightning in my blood,
My Dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
Oh! there was lightning in my blood,
Red lightning lightened through my blood,
My Dark Rosaleen!
‘The Execution of Archbishop Plunkett’ by Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Death to the world, and the world’s idle praise, —
The faithless saw his faith with evil eyes,
They doom’d him without stain, and here he dies.
Folklore: Parnell's Rhyme
We'll wake the Harp of Tara's Hall
With music streams once more
And the birds shall ring with freedom
Throughout green Erin's shore.
The Triumph of Hugh O’Neill by Roger Casement
No more the feet of foemen shall taint our Northern soil,
No more the waving cornfields shall be the Saxon’s spoil.
Our flag no longer drooping, each fold shall now reveal,
And wave for God and Erin and our darling Hugh O’Neill.
Poetry: Lay Your Weapons Down, Young Lady by Piaras Feiritéar
These weapons put behind you:
hide henceforth your curling hair;
do not bare that white breast
that spares no living man.
Poetry: ‘The Fool’ by Pádraig Pearse
O wise men, riddle me this: what if the dream come true?
What if the dream come true? and if millions unborn shall dwell
In the house that I shaped in my heart, the noble house of my thought?
Poetry: ‘My Mother Tongue’ by Maisie McAllister
My Irish isn’t clean, my grammar doesn’t gleam
In this soft light, but I still like
It’s punctuality, musicality, the spirituality with which we once spoke
My mother’s tongue was cut from my throat
Nationality by Thomas Davis
On nations fixed in right and truth,
God would bestow eternal youth.
The Exile’s Meditation by Thomas D’Arcy McGee
I have read in ancient annals of a race of gallant men
Who fear’d neither Dane nor Devil; but it is long since then —
And "cowardice is virtue,'' so runs the modern creed
Lament For Thomas Davis by Samuel Ferguson
Oh, brave young men, my love, my pride, my promise,
’Tis on you my hopes are set,
In manliness, in kindliness, in justice,
To make Erin a nation yet