Digital Tradition Mirror

Be Kind to Belfast

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Be Kind to Belfast

Red brick in the suburb, white horse on the wall,
Italian marble in the grand city hall;
O stanger from England, why stand ye aghast?
May the Lord in his mercy be kind to Belfast.

We swore by King William, there'd never be seen
An all Ireland parliament at College Green
And at Stormont we're nailing the flag to the mast.
May the Lord in his mercy be kind to Belfast.

This city that harbours our hopes and our fears
Was knocked up from the swamp in the last hundred years;
But the last shall be first and the first shall be last;
May the Lord in his mercy be kind to Belfast

The bricks they may bleed and the rain it may weep
And the damp Lagan fog lulls the city to sleep.
It's to Hell with the future, we'll live in the past
May the Lord in his mercy be kind to Belfast

As I remember it - which makes it a traditional song
Air Old Orange Flute or Villikins and his Dinah or whatever you like (that's
traditional too)
     The second and thrid verses may be transposed, the others only make sense
where they are.
     To understand this song one needs to know a little about the topography of
Belfast and about northern history - I'm not going to explain - except for
one thing - Maurice James Craig was a protestant liberal.

JM
oct99

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!