When Boyhood's Fire Was In My Blood

Our wing party is winding down in the room next to me, James is defending communism in one corner of the room, and I'm absolutely knackered and ready for my bed. Before I go, though, I thought I'd stick up this e-mail, forwarded to my brother from a friend of his, and passed on to me. It amused me.

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The BBC are at it again - this time however they're asking everyone to vote for their favourite song of all time. So obviously we're going to try and mess it up for them. Go to the website and enter your details. In the boxes for Favourite song and Artist add the following

Artist : Wolfe Tones

Song : A Nation Once Again

Why : 800 years of oppression

P.S. And send it to everyone else you know.

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To put this in perspective, if you're not Irish.... nobody in their right mind would ever pick this song as their favourite ever. Somebody once said that they'd believe the Peace Process in the North was working when the Wolfe Tones decommisioned their instruments. Bertie Ahern, our glorious Taoiseach, or Prime Minister to those of you who lack the blood of the true Gael, once suggested that 'A Nation Once Again' would make a better, more appropriate, less divisive national anthem than 'Amhran na bhFiann'. Joe O'Connor ridicules this very concept in one of his books, pointing out that with just a few minor changes this is the kind of song that would have gone down a treat over the schnapps in 1930s Berlin.

Here are the lyrics, as written in the early nineteenth century by Thomas Davis:

When boyhood's fire was in my blood I read of ancient freemen

For Greece and Rome who bravely stood, three hundred men and three men

And then I prayed I yet might see our fetters rent in twain

And Ireland, long a province, be a nation once again!

A nation once again, a nation once again

And Ireland, long a province, be a nation once again!

And from that time, through wildest woe, that hope has shown a far light

Nor could love's brightest summer glow outshine that solemn starlight

It seemed to watch above my head In forum, field and fame

Its angel voice sang round my bed, a nation once again

A nation once again, a nation once again

And Ireland, long a province, be a nation once again!

It whisper'd too, that freedom's ark, and service high and holy

Would be profaned by feeling dark and passions vain or lowly

For, freedom comes from God's right hand, and needs a godly train

And righteous men must make our land a nation once again!