OhtoSingAnIrish Song(C)2021TonyFallon0630

 OhtoSingAnIrish Song(C)2021TonyFallon0630 

Are The Irish Music high Holy days gone maybe forever?

Perhaps brave men will come once again and start a new endeavor

Do you remember sixty years ago in a more folksy age

When wild looking young men some with beards  would take the local stage

And belt out new Irish songs from local villages and towns

And fill dance halls from Kerry to Armagh with swinging Irish sounds

Big Tom would sing of Castleblaney Brendan Shine of Castlerea

Dermot O'Brien would sing of Louth and the Turfmsn from Ardee

Larry and Declan were singing of their Longford and Drumlish

Others told of the awful suffering and dying in Long Kesh

Almost every week there would be a new song about H Block

Meanwhile Dana was singing the praises of the Lady of Knock

Danny Doyle was singing about gathering up pots and pans

The Wolfe Tones had new songs about the IRA and the Black and Tans

Somewhere else someone would sing of the Kerry hills of Knocknashee

Dermot Henry in New York was singing The Village of Asdee

Remember Lovely Derry the Lee and the Lovely Rose of Clare

And the Johnson group sang lovingly of the Plains of Kildare

Who can forget Lovely Leitrim or the green hills of Sligo

Or the cottage on the borderline of Galway and Mayo

Lough Ree oh Lough Ree where Roscomm Westmeath and Longford counties met

The pretty little girl from Omagh may have been a brunette

A woman was afraid of a kiss in the town of Ballymoe

While up in Cavan they were singing the praises of John Joe

Sharon Shannon moved a bit north and became the Galway Girl

The song became so world famous once she gave it to Steve Earl

One gypsy was a rover another's crush was a girl of eight

And Willie Brady walked the boreen with a Muldoon girl named Kate

The Dubliners going to Galway Races had four hours to drive

It must have been a Rocky road to Dublin one two three four five

Sean McCarthy wrote a rousing song about a red haired Mary

Johnnie McCauley was home in any town in Tipperary

Phil Coulter wrote so sadly of Derry the town he loved so well

And how the hated British army turned his hometown into hell

Paddy Farrell told us he wanted to go back to Castlebar

Someone else sang of Patsy Mulligan the man from Mullingar

Pete St John wrote of the Atherny wife who could only mourn

As her husband was shipped to Australia for stealing some corn

There were songs about love,romance,Clay pipes,carrots donkeys and goats

The old guys who drank too much and the dreaded emigrant boats

It seems no one will record now unless it's Grace or Raglan Road

Or country songs about Texas where the Rio Grande flowed

Will all our little towns and villages become once more obscure?

Will no one again sing Irish songs like Margo or Christy Moore?

Are we no more to hear the likes of McEvoy or Brendan Grace?

Or Furey/Arthur nor Hegarty that would be such a disgrace

Are there no more Paddy Reilly's Luke Kelly's or Ronnie Drews?

Is there anyone out there to fill Foster and Allen's shoes?

No more drilling in the mountains no more Kelly from Killane
No more Kevin Barry or Sean South or Martha from Strabane

No more Tommy Makem from Armagh no Clancy's or Pecker Dunne
No more Billy Reid dying on the street with an old Thompson gun

No Lisdoon or Limerick Lady or Irish in New York

No more will we hear great stories of the boys from county cork

Is the Golden era past is there no more youthful passion?

Are we not proud of new Irish songs and gone Country to cash in?