Friday 11 November 2016

The Munster Fusiliers


Come pass the call 'round Munster.
Let the notes ring loud and clear.
We want the merchant and the squire.
The peasant and the Peer.
For we mean to whip those Germans,
So away with your paltry affairs
And come join that grand Battalion
Called the Munster Fusiliers

The Kaiser knows each Munster
By the shamrock on his cap
And the famous Bengal tiger
Ever ready for a scrap.
With all his big battalions,
Prussian Guards and Grenadiers,
He feared to face the bayonets
Of the Munster Fusiliers

When marching up through Belgium
Sure we thought of days of old.
The cruel sights that meet your eyes
Would make your blood run cold
To see the ruined convents
And the Holy nuns in tears.
By God on high avenge or die
Cried the Munster Fusiliers

God rest our fallen comrades.
May they take their long last sleep
On the fields of France and Flanders.
Sure, we have no cause to weep.
For their deeds will live in history
And the youth of future years
Will read with pride
Of the men who died.
The Munster Fusiliers.



Image: Rescue of the nuns of Ypres by the Munster Fusiliers, December 1914 from Supplement Gratis with the Weekly Freeman, St. Patrick's Day Number, March 13th, 1915, © National Library of Ireland.
Text: Words of a song published during the Great War and reprinted in History Ireland magazine Spring 1998.




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