I am a merry ploughboy
And I plough the fields all day
Until the thought came to my mind
That I must be away
I've always hated slavery
from the day that I was born
So I'm off to join the IRA,
and I'm off tomorrow morn
I leave behind my old grey mare,
I leave behind my plough
And I leave behind my horse and yoke,
I'll never need them now.
I'll take my short revolver
and my bandolier of lead,
And I'll do or die, I can but try,
to avenge my country's dead.
I leave behind my Mary,
she's the girl I do adore
And I wonder if she'll think of me
when she hears those cannon roar
And when the war is over
and dear old Ireland's free
I'll take her to a church to wed
and a rebel's wife she'll be
We're all after Dublin
in the green, in the green
Where the helmets glisten in the sun
Where the bayonets splashed
and rifles crashed
To the echo of the Thompson gun