The Spirit of Mother Jones - Andy Irvine

Mother Jones is dead and gone she could no longer stay

No one knew how old she was but she was often heard to say

How she was born in 1830 in the sweet County Cork

But she crossed the foaming billows till she landed in New York

Mother Jones the miners' angel must be treated with respect

She’s an old-fashioned lady and you never would suspect

That this gown and this bonnet would fill the rich man full of dread

«She's the most dangerous woman in America!», thy said

I see her marching down the street with her umbrlla in her hand

I can hear her still at Ludlow where the miners made a stand

And she says: «John D. will you kindly tell to me

How could you let your troopers lay them thirteen children down?»

In the horrors of West Virginia and in Colorado too

Mother Jones and her miners they never could subdue

And the men they fought and died in their tents and shanty towns

And the women stood like a wall of steel that nothing could batter down

Mother Jones the miners' angel must be treated with respect

She’s an old-fashioned lady and you never would suspect

That this gown and this bonnet would fill the rich man full of dread

«She's the most dangerous woman in America!», they said

«And it’s now for the evils of child labour», says she

And the march of the mill children took place in nineteen three

From Philadelphia to New York and she says: «I'm going to show

Wall Street the flesh and blood they squeeze to make their dough»

When she died in 1930 O the sadness was profound

And they laid her to rest in a Union burial ground

And she lies in Mount Olive where the midnight wind it moans

«Stand up for the Union!», cries the spirit of Mother Jones

The rich man and his police and his pulpit and his press

Got away with murder then they’d get away with it yet

But we’ll form a mighty union and we won’t be overthrown

And we never will forget the spirit of Mother Jones