Dunlavin Green

Traditional

This version by Christy Moore From his album "The Iron behind the Velvet"

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 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 easy they led us as prisoners through the town

To be shot on the plain, we then were forced to kneel down.

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

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

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

Likewise the two Duffys 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 screen

For the loss of their own poor fathers who died on the Green.

Some of our boys to the hills they have run away.

More of them have been shot and some have run off to sea.

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

For the loss of his own dear comrades who died on the Green.