Damien Dempsey Kelly from Killan / The Teetotaller song lyrics

"What's the news? What's the news?

O my bold Shelmalier,

With your long-barrelled gun of the sea?

Say what wind from the sun

Blows his messenger here

With a hymn of the dawn for the free?"

"Goodly news, goodly news,

Do I bring, Youth of Forth;

Goodly news shall you hear, Bargy man!

For the Boys march at morn

From the South to the North,

Led by Kelly, the Boy from Killanne

"Tell me who is that giant

With the gold curling hair -

He who rides at the head of your band?

Seven feet is his height,

With some inches to spare,

And he looks Iike a King in command!"

"Ah, my lads, that's the pride

Of the bold Shelmaliers,

'mong our greatest of heroes, a Man!

Fling your beavers aloft

And give three ringing cheers

For John Kelly, the Boy from Killanne!" Enniscorthy's in flames,

And old Wexford is won,

And the Barrow to-morrow we cross,

On a hill o'er the town

We have planted a gun

That will batter the gateways of Ross!

All the Forth men and Bargy men

March o'er the heath,

With brave Harvey to lead on the van;

But the foremost of all

In the grim Gap of Death

Will be Kelly, the Boy from Killanne!"

But the gold sun of Freedom

Grew darkened at Ross,

And it set by the Slaney's red waves;

And poor Wexford, stript naked,

hung high on a cross,

And her heart pierced by traitors and slaves!

Glory O! Glory O!

To her brave sons who died

For the cause of long-down-trodden man!

Glory O! to Mount Leinster's

Own darling and pride

Dauntless Kelly, the Boy from Killanne.