Roddy McCorley

By Ethna Carberry
Rise Up Singing chapter: Struggle, p.218
D - GA D / D GD GEm A / / 1st

"The story of Roddy McCorley does not begin during the years of the United Irishmen but begins in the early 1760s with the formation of the mainly Catholic Defenders. The Defenders were a secret agrarian society that agitated for reform of the harsh penal laws then in force and consisted mainly of smallholders, small businessmen and the landless peasantry. " - From www.roddymccorley.com

Alternate lyrics are here

Rise Up Singing lyrics:
O, see the fleet-foot hosts of men who speed with faces wan
From farmstead and from thresher's cot, along the banks of Ban
They come with vengeance in their eyes, too late, too late are they
For young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today

Up the narrow street he stepped, smiling proud and young
About the hemp-rope on his neck, the golden ringlets clung
There's ne'er a tear in his blue eyes, both glad and bright are they / As young...

When last he steppèd up that street, his shining pike in hand
Behind him marched in grim array, an earnest, stalwart band
"For Antrim Town!" (2x) He led them to the fray / Now young...

There's never a one of all your dead more bravely fell in fray
Than he who marches to his fate on the bridge of Toome today
True to the last (2x) he treads the upward way / As young...