Only Her Rivers Run Free – ©Mickey MacConnell 

Mickey MacConnell was born in 1947, the youngest member of a musical family from Bellanaleck near Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. He wrote this powerful song about his native Northern Ireland in 1965, just before the beginning of the "troubles."
  

When apples still grow in November,

When blossom remains on each tree,
When leaves are still green in December

It's then that our land will be free.

I wander her hills and her valleys

And still to my sorrow I see,
A land that has never known freedom,

Where Only Her Rivers Run Free.

I drink to the death of her manhood,

To those men who would rather have died,
Than to live in the cold chains of bondage,

To bring back the rights we're denied.

Oh! where are you now when we need you?,

What burns where the flame used to be?
Are you gone like the snow of last winter?

And Only Her Rivers Run Free?

How sweet is life but we're crying,

How mellow the wine yet we're dry,
How fragrant the rose but it's dying,

How gentle the wind yet it sighs.
What good is in youth when you're ageing,

What joy is in eyes that can see
That there is sorrow in sunshine and flowers,

If Only Her Rivers Run Free.

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