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The Bloody Red Hand

[ Roud - ; Mudcat 15638 ; Randy Percy]

Danny Spooner sang Irishman Randy Percy’s song The Bloody Red Hand on his 1986 album I Got This One From…. He noted:

Randy Percy is well known to folkies in Australia as the lad who ran the Dan O’Connell for years and a great job he did too. But, he also has a talent with words, as can be heard in The Bloody Red Hand which he wrote in 1975. He asked me to put a tune to it, so I chose the tune of a 19^th century Irish broadside, The Banks of the Bann, which I had learned from my Gran when I was a kid.

Lyrics

Danny Spooner sings The Bloody Red Hand

Oh the lion of England is fierce I hear say
And the Yankee’s bald eagle makes a handsome display
But of all your fine symbols of any great land
You’ll find none so awesome as the bloody red hand

In the days that’s gone by in this land of the saints
There is many a picture of greatness I paint
Where learning’s bright light like a beacon shone grand
But that light has been dimmed by the bloody red hand

Now fear stalks the streets there by day and by night
And children taught hatred soon learn how to fight
Before they are thirteen as bigots they’re damned
They too have been touched by the bloody red hand

There’s many brave deeds that by young men’s been done
And there’s many a mother who weeps for her son
For they answered the call and they’ve taken their stand
For Ireland, for Ulster, for the bloody red hand

Oh this country of mine has no future but hate
So go down on your knees now before it’s too late
And pray for forgiveness of your fellow man
And in peace we’ll live free of the bloody red hand