Who fears to speak of '98, who blushes at the name,
When cowards mock the patriot's fate, who hangs his head for shame,
He's all in name half a slave who slights his country thus,
But true men, like you men, will fill your glass with us.
We drink the memory of the brave, the fateful and the few,
Some lie far off beyond the waves some sleep in Ireland too,
All, all are gone but still lives on the fame of those who died,
All true men, like you men, remember them with pride.
Some on the shores of distant lands their weary hearts are laid,
And by the stranger's heedless hands their lonely graves were made,
But though their clay be far away beyond the Atlantic foam,
In true men, like you men, their spirit's still at home.
The dust on some is Irish earth among their own they rest,
And the same dear land that gave them birth has cut them to her breast,
And we will pray that from their clay whole many a race may start,
Of true men, like you men, to act as brave a part.
They rose in dark and evil days to right their native land,
And they kindled here a living blaze that nothing shall withstand,
Alas that might can vanquish right they fell and passed away,
But true men, like you men, are plenty here today.
Then here's to their memory may it be for us a guiding light,
To cheer our strike for liberty and teach us to unite,
Through good and ill be Ireland still though sad as theirs your fate,
And true men, like you men, like those of '98.