Old Dan

Old stories he told and old ballads he sung
The Tans were in Ireland when old Dan was young
He was twenty six years in nineteen sixteen
And the bitterness and grief of war he had seen.

I knew him when he was in his mid sixties in his life's early Fall
And he said his Civil war memories were his saddest memories of all
When the signing of a Treaty caused families to divide
And brother at the hand of brother had died.

He had fought in war but the praises of war would not sing
He said war to Ireland death and sorrow did bring
A heroic freedom fighter of which he never did brag
He said far too many lives lost for the color of a flag.

With the deceased of Munster for decades he lay
I knew him as an ageing man his hair silver gray
He told stories and sung songs of his younger years
Of the Ireland he loved land of bloodshed and tears.