The Valley of Knockanure - The Wolfe Tones

1. You may sing or speak about Easter Week

Or the heroes of Ninety-Eight

Those Fenian men who roamed the glen

For victory or defeat

Their names on history’s page are told,

Their memory will endure

Not a song was sung of our darling sons

In the valley of Knockanure.

2. There was Walsh and Lyons and the Dalton boy,

They were young and in their prime

They rambled to a lonely spot

Where the Black and Tans did hide

The Republic bold they did uphold

Though outlawed on the moor

And side by side, they fought and died

In the valley of Knockanure.

3. It was on a neighbouring hillside

We listened in hushed dismay

In every house, in every town,

A young girl knelt to pray

They’re closing in around them now,

With rifle fire so sure

And Lyons is dead and young Dalton’s down

In the valley of Knockanure.

4. But ere the guns could seal his fate,

Young Walsh had broken through

With a prayer to God, he spun the sod

As against the hill he flew

And the bullets cut his flesh in two,

Still he cried with voice so sure

«Oh, revenge I’ll get for my comrades' deaths

In the valley of Knockanure.»

5. The summer sun is sinking

Now behind the field and lea

The pale moonlight is shining bright

Far off beyond Tralee

The dismal stars and the clouds afar

Are darkening o’er the moor

And the banshee cried when young Dalton died,

In the valley of Knockanure.