H-BLOCK SONG
I am a proud young Irishman
In Ulster's hills my life began
A happy boy through green fields ran
I kept God's and man's laws
But when age was barely ten
My country's wrongs were told again
By tens of thousand marching men
My heart stood to their cause
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland's fight
Eight hundred years of crime
I learned of centuries of strife
Of cruel laws injustice rife
And I saw now in my own young life
The fruits of foreign sway
Protesters threatened, tortured, maimed
Divisions nurtured passions flamed;
Outrage prevoke rights cause defamed
This is the conqueror's ways
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland's fight
Eight hundred years of crime
Descendant from proud Connaught clan
Concannon served cruel Britain's plan
Man's inhumanity to man
Had spawned a trusting slave
No strangers are these bolts and locks
No new design these dark H-Blocks
Proud Cromwell lives while Thatcher stalks
The bully taunts the brave
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland's fight
Eight hundred years of crime
Does Britain need a thousand years
Of protest, riots, death and tears
Or will this last decade of fears
Of eighty decades spell
An end to Ireland's agony
New hope for human dignity
And will this last obscenity
Be this dark H-Block cell
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland's fight
Eight hundred years of crime
