Sean South of Garryowen - Irish Folk

Sean South of Garryowen is an old rebel song written by Sean Costelloe in 1957. South was an IRA member and was killed during a raid on an RUC barracks in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh. The song was written to the tune of an earlier folk song called Roddy McCorley from the late 1700s.

Lyrics:
'Twas on a dreary New Year's Eve
As the shades of night came down
A lorry load of volunteers approached the border town
There were men from Dublin and from Cork, Fermanagh and Tyrone
And their leader was a Limerick man
Sean South from Garryowen

And as they moved along the street up to the barracks door
They scorned the danger they might face;
Their fate that lay in store
They were fighting for old Ireland
To claim their very own
And the foremost of that gallant band
Was South from Garryowen

But the sergeant spied their daring plan
He spied them through the door
The Sten guns and the rifles a hail of death did pour
And when that awful night was past
Two men lay as cold as stone
There was one from near the border
And one from Garryowen

No more he will hear the seagull's cry
O'er the murmuring Shannon tide
For he fell beneath a northern sky, brave Hanlon by his side
They have gone to join that gallant band
Of Plunkett, Pearse and Tone
A martyr for old Ireland
Sean South from Garryowen.