H Block

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 my age was barely ten

My country's wrongs were told again

By tens of thousands marching men

And my heart stirred to the 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

I saw now in my own young life

The fruits of foreign sway

Protesters threatened, tortured, maimed

Divisions nurtured, passions flamed

Outrage provoked, rights caused defamed

This is the conqueror's way

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

Descended from proud Connacht 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

Black Cromwell lives, while Mason stalks

The bully taunts the brave

But 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, riot, death and tears

Or will this past 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

I'll wear no convict's uniform

Nor meekly serve my time

That Britain might brand Ireland's fight

Eight hundred years of crime