Valkyrie
5th May 2004, 16:25
The name causes much controversy among many, as some remember a "terrorist", and other's remember a freedom fighter, a product of his political situation in a partitioned and occupied country, that STILL remains unfree to this day.
However one wants to categorize him --- One thing stands true... that he believed in the Rightness of his cause of a free united socialist Ireland, enough to take it to it's ultimate end, in the face of horrendous amounts of pressure to back off, while serving time in a British prison on Irish soil convicted only of gun possession. He was elected to the Westminister Parliament whilst doing so.
So, a tribute to my very courageous comrade Bobby Sands, aged 27, and the nine others who followed him to their deaths over the short span of three months to attain political prisoner recognition by the British Government.
"I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land." - Bobby Sands diary entry, 1st day of hungerstrike.
http://www.bobbysandstrust.org/poster2.asp
http://www.bobbysandstrust.org/home.asp
http://larkspirit.com/hungerstrikes/
http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/...rt/prosands.htm (http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/aia/exhibits/0501_hunger/support/prosands.htm)
http://archives.tcm.ie/breakingnews/2001/1.../story33688.asp (http://archives.tcm.ie/breakingnews/2001/12/18/story33688.asp)
http://www.swp.ie/resources/20%20years%20since%20the%20H.htm
THE RHYTHM OF TIME
There’s an inner thing in every man,
Do you know this thing my friend?
It has withstood the blows of a million years,
And will do so to the end.
It was born when time did not exist,
And it grew up out of life,
It cut down evil’s strangling vines,
Like a slashing searing knife.
It lit fires when fires were not,
And burnt the mind of man,
Tempering leadened hearts to steel,
From the time that time began.
It wept by the waters of Babylon,
And when all men were a loss,
It screeched in writhing agony,
And it hung bleeding from the Cross.
It died in Rome by lion and sword,
And in defiant cruel array,
When the deathly word was ‘Spartacus’,
Along the Appian Way.
It marched with Wat the Tyler’s poor,
And frightened lord and king,
And it was emblazoned in their deathly stare,
As e’er a living thing.
It smiled in holy innocence,
Before conquistadors of old,
So meek and tame and unaware,
Of the deathly power of gold.
It burst forth through pitiful Paris streets,
And stormed the old Bastille,
And marched upon the serpent’s head,
And crushed it ‘neath its heel.
It died in blood on Buffalo Plains,
And starved by moons of rain,
Its heart was buried in Wounded Knee,
But it will come to rise again.
It screamed aloud by Kerry lakes,
As it was knelt upon the ground,
And it died in great defiance,
As they coldly shot it down.
It is found in every light of hope,
It knows no bounds nor space,
It has risen in red and black and white,
It is there in every race.
It lies in the hearts of heroes dead,
It screams in tyrants’ eyes,
It has reached the peak of mountains high,
It comes seating ‘cross the skies.
It lights the dark of this prison cell,
It thunders forth its might,
It is ‘the undauntable thought’, my friend,
That thought that says ‘I’m right!’
— Bobby Sands, H-Block, Long Kesh Prison Camp.
The H-Block Song
I am a proud young Irishman
From Ulster's hill my life began
A happy boy through green fields ran
And I kept God's and man's laws.
But when my age was barely ten
My country's wrongs were told again
By tens of thousands marching men
And my heart stirred to their cause.
(chorus)
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland's fight 800 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 prevoked, rights cause defamed
This is the conqueror's ways
(chorus)
Descendant's of proud Connaught clan
Concannon served cruel Britain's plan
Man's inhumanity to man
Had spawned a trusty slave
No strangers are these bolts and locks
No new design these dark H-Blocks
Cruel Cromwell lives while Mason* stalks
The bully taunts the brave
(chorus)
Does Britain need one 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 the last obscenity
Be this grim H-Block cell
(chorus)
(**Mason was Britain's secretary of state for N.Ireland at the beginning of the blanket protest)
-By Francie Brolly
However one wants to categorize him --- One thing stands true... that he believed in the Rightness of his cause of a free united socialist Ireland, enough to take it to it's ultimate end, in the face of horrendous amounts of pressure to back off, while serving time in a British prison on Irish soil convicted only of gun possession. He was elected to the Westminister Parliament whilst doing so.
So, a tribute to my very courageous comrade Bobby Sands, aged 27, and the nine others who followed him to their deaths over the short span of three months to attain political prisoner recognition by the British Government.
"I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land." - Bobby Sands diary entry, 1st day of hungerstrike.
http://www.bobbysandstrust.org/poster2.asp
http://www.bobbysandstrust.org/home.asp
http://larkspirit.com/hungerstrikes/
http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/...rt/prosands.htm (http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/aia/exhibits/0501_hunger/support/prosands.htm)
http://archives.tcm.ie/breakingnews/2001/1.../story33688.asp (http://archives.tcm.ie/breakingnews/2001/12/18/story33688.asp)
http://www.swp.ie/resources/20%20years%20since%20the%20H.htm
THE RHYTHM OF TIME
There’s an inner thing in every man,
Do you know this thing my friend?
It has withstood the blows of a million years,
And will do so to the end.
It was born when time did not exist,
And it grew up out of life,
It cut down evil’s strangling vines,
Like a slashing searing knife.
It lit fires when fires were not,
And burnt the mind of man,
Tempering leadened hearts to steel,
From the time that time began.
It wept by the waters of Babylon,
And when all men were a loss,
It screeched in writhing agony,
And it hung bleeding from the Cross.
It died in Rome by lion and sword,
And in defiant cruel array,
When the deathly word was ‘Spartacus’,
Along the Appian Way.
It marched with Wat the Tyler’s poor,
And frightened lord and king,
And it was emblazoned in their deathly stare,
As e’er a living thing.
It smiled in holy innocence,
Before conquistadors of old,
So meek and tame and unaware,
Of the deathly power of gold.
It burst forth through pitiful Paris streets,
And stormed the old Bastille,
And marched upon the serpent’s head,
And crushed it ‘neath its heel.
It died in blood on Buffalo Plains,
And starved by moons of rain,
Its heart was buried in Wounded Knee,
But it will come to rise again.
It screamed aloud by Kerry lakes,
As it was knelt upon the ground,
And it died in great defiance,
As they coldly shot it down.
It is found in every light of hope,
It knows no bounds nor space,
It has risen in red and black and white,
It is there in every race.
It lies in the hearts of heroes dead,
It screams in tyrants’ eyes,
It has reached the peak of mountains high,
It comes seating ‘cross the skies.
It lights the dark of this prison cell,
It thunders forth its might,
It is ‘the undauntable thought’, my friend,
That thought that says ‘I’m right!’
— Bobby Sands, H-Block, Long Kesh Prison Camp.
The H-Block Song
I am a proud young Irishman
From Ulster's hill my life began
A happy boy through green fields ran
And I kept God's and man's laws.
But when my age was barely ten
My country's wrongs were told again
By tens of thousands marching men
And my heart stirred to their cause.
(chorus)
So I'll wear no convict's uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland's fight 800 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 prevoked, rights cause defamed
This is the conqueror's ways
(chorus)
Descendant's of proud Connaught clan
Concannon served cruel Britain's plan
Man's inhumanity to man
Had spawned a trusty slave
No strangers are these bolts and locks
No new design these dark H-Blocks
Cruel Cromwell lives while Mason* stalks
The bully taunts the brave
(chorus)
Does Britain need one 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 the last obscenity
Be this grim H-Block cell
(chorus)
(**Mason was Britain's secretary of state for N.Ireland at the beginning of the blanket protest)
-By Francie Brolly