`Ballad of Liam Mellows' folk song lyrics

A biographical folk song from 1985 about an Irish Republican socialist who was executed during the Irish Civil War.
(chorus)
Irish puppets ordered
Liam Mellows shot
Executed ten minutes before Mass
Irish traitors served
The British as good cops
And murdered Liam Mellows for their class.

(verses)
Born in 1892 with Ireland in chains
Liam Mellows sang and played fiddle
But before the age of 20 he united with his cause
And trained farmers to fight against British wrongs.

In 1916, Liam Mellows led the fight
In Galway and throughout the Irish West
To escape the British hunt, Liam went on the run
While the British drowned in blood the Irish Republic.

One by one they dragged into the prison yard
The leaders of the Easter Rebellion
And there the British shot the Irish Republic
As one by one the leaders were executed. (chorus)

With the aid of the people, Liam escaped to England
And then to North America to fight on
He raised some money there to wage guerrilla war
To re-establish the Irish Republic.

Then Liam Mellows returned to the land he loved
And organized for Ireland a gun run
The British were brutal, but the I.R.A. fought well
And they forced Lloyd George to the table.

But within the Irish camp there was an upper class
That sold out the Irish Republic
LIke a good Trojan Horse, they gave Britain the North
And Liam Mellows chose to resist. (chorus)

Britain's Irish tools were armed with British guns
And shot their former comrades at Four Courts
The Irish upper class did Britain's dirty work
And although elected, Liam Mellows was locked up.

Liam Mellows called for the Irish Republic
Where Irish workers would not be slaves
To shut Liam Mellows up, at 30 he was shot
And the government that killed him still rules today.

But the memory of Liam Mellows roams Ireland today
For his whole short life he gave for Ireland
His dream of a free nation, no longer partitioned,
It lives inside the hearts of everyone. (chorus)