I went to see a legend just the other night,
At the Yankee Stadium, underneath the light,
I heard the man speaking, went years and years in jail,
His name it was Mandela and he came to tell his tale.

Well, the crowd they cheered him loudly, ah, but then the silence fell,
As he spoke about the hard years in a South African cell,
And though he was free, his heart still feeling the pain,
For his country and his people were still held down by apartheid's chains.

He said, he hoped that we would join him and walk down freedom's path,
And these roads would be the hardest, oh, but they would be the last,
And to join our hands together just so that we might be as one,
And to bring ourselves to the cause so that this battle could be won.

I went home to bed that evening, I went to sleep and I had a dream,
I was standing in the pouring rain, in an Irish field of green,
And all around the headstones for the martyrs of the past,
I stood there in silence, and they spoke to me at last.

"Well, Kevin Barry is my name, and I was tortured in a cell,
For they wanted the names of my comrades, oh, but this I would not tell",
"And I am Roger Casement, and I was hanged in London Town,
For bringing German rifles to the lonely Banna Strand."

"And James Connolly is my name, and working people they were my life,
When they shot me down in Kilmainham Jail there was strife",
"And I am Pádraig Pearse, and I was shot down by the foe,
For I read the proclamation from the steps of the GPO."

And the last voice that I heard he said, "My name is Bobby Sands,
And it's good to hear Mandela's words they are ringing through the land,
I want to hear them in Belfast and in Derry and Tyrone,
For maybe then those English soldiers will know it's time to go home."

I woke the next morning, oh, I remember them all,
And who would have believed that they would of torn down the Berlin Wall?
And "Oh" says Mandela, "Oh, could this really be?
Maybe now you'll see Ireland reunited and free.".