Sean South from Garryowen

It was on a dreary New Year's Eve
as the shades of night came down,
A lorry load of volunteers
approached a border town,
There were men from Dublin and from Cork,
Fermanagh and Tyrone
But the leader was a Limerick man,
Sean South from Garryowen.

And as they marched along the street
up to the barracks door,
they scorned the dangers they would face,
their fate that lay in store,
They were fighting for old Ireland's cause
to claim their very own,
And the foremost of that gallant band
was South from Garryowen.

But the sergeant foiled their daring plan,
he spied them through the door,
Then the sten guns and the rifles,
a hail of death did pour,
And when that awful night was past,
two men lay cold as stone,
There was one from near the border
and one from Garryowen.

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