THE VALLEY OF KNOCKANURE
(Tim Leahy)
1. You may sing or speak about Easter Week or the heroes of Ninety-Eight
Those Fenian men who roamed the glen for victory or defeat
Their names on history's page are told, their memory will endure Not
a song was sung of our darling sons in the valley of Knockanure.
2. There was Walsh and Lyons and the Dalton boy, they were young and in
their prime,
They rambled to a lonely spot where the Black and Tans did hide
The Republic bold they did uphold though outlawed on the moor,
And side by side, they fought and died in the valley of Knockanure.
3. It was on a neighbouring hillside we listened in calm dismay,
In every house, in every town, a young girl knelt to pray:
They're closing in around them now, with rifle fire so sure
And Lyons is dead and young Dalton's down in the valley of Knockanure.
4. But ere the guns could seal his fate, young Walsh had broken through
With a prayer to God, he spun the sod as against the hill he flew
And the bullets cut his flesh in two, still he cried with voice so sure
"Oh, revenge I'll get for my comrades' deaths in the valley of
Knockanure."
5. The summer sun is sinking now behind the field and lea
The pale moonlight is shining bright far off beyond Tralee
The dismal stars and the clouds afar are darkening o'er the moor
And the banshee cried when young Dalton died, in the valley of
Knockanure.
written by Tim Leahy of Listowel, about events in the Black and Tan
War, 1921. another variant in O Lochlainn
