Album: The Gathering Wilderness (2005)

The Coffin Ships


Young hearts born with grief
Shall pay the penalty of truth
A season of stolen youth
Shall teach old hearts to break

It feels like I've been here before
Here to where the animals lay down to die
So we stood alone on a distant store
Our broken spirits in rags and tatters

Nerve and muscle, heart and brains
Lost to Ireland, lost in vain
Pause and you can almost hear
The sounds echo down through the ages
The creak of the burial cart
Here in humiliation and sorrow
Not mixed with indignation
One is driven to exclaim
Oh god, that bread should be so dear
And human flesh so cheap[*]

Young hearts are born with such grief
We have paid the penalty of truth
A season of our stolen youth
Shall teach our hearts to break

Lyrics: A.A. Nemtheanga
Music: MacUilliam and Primordial

[*Taken from a memorial to the dead at a mass grave in Skibereen, Co. Cork]

["Between the years 1845 and 1849 a famine ravaged Ireland and over 3 million people were lost to a combination of starvation and emigration I said once before the history of my land is a litany of tragedy and blood, these four years represent possibly the greatest tragedy the country has endured. It still hangs over Ireland and set the tone for Irish people to leave Ireland shores to the present day. The coffin ships themselves were what the ships that set sail for America in search of a new and better life were called. It's with this song we honour the memory of this great tragedy and those poor souls who lost their lives."]