Colony

I sing the song of the colony How many years and you're still not free And your mother cries and you ask god why Greed is the knife and the scars run deep How many races with much reason to weep And your children cry And you ask god why Annie, she came from Dunlavin Town The TB came and killed her family all around Population booms Eleven in two rooms Katie she came from down Townsend street Ten in a bed and no shoes on their feet 1916 came They played the patriots game Freddy, he came from the Iveagh flats Tenement slums and infested with rats Sleeping on damp straw Trying not to break the law Thomas, he came from Kilmaine in Mayo Semi starvation was the only life you'd know In a two room shack Then jailed in Letterfrack I look to the east, I look to the west To the north and the south, and I'm not too impressed Time after time After crime after crime They raped, robbed, pillaged, enslaved and murdered Jesus Christ was their god and they done it in his name So he could take the blame if it's not all a game With bible in one hand and a sword in the other They came to purify my land of my Gaelic Irish mothers And fathers, and sisters and brothers With our own ancient customs, laws, music, art Way of life and culture Tribal in structure We had a civilisation When they were still neanderthal nations We suffer with the Native American, the Indian in Asia Aboriginal Australia The African people with their history so deep And our children still weep and our lives are still cheap You came from Germany, from France, from England And from Spain From Belgium and from Portugal You all done much the same You took what was not yours Went against your own bible You broke your own laws Just to out do the rival But did you ever apologize For the hundreds and millions of lives You destroyed and terrorised Or have you never realized Did you never feel shame For what was done in your country's name And find out who's to blame and why they were so inhumane And still they teach you in your school About those glorious days of rule And how it's your destiny to be Superior to me But if you've any kind of mind You'll see that all human kind Are the children of this earth And your hate for them will chew you up and spit you out You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free You'll never kill our will to be free, to be free Inside our minds we hold, hold the key.