The Orangemen of Ireland

(Tune “The Old Orange Tree”)

When Satan sat in Parliament, the Popish Bill to pass,
He laid a snare to force us all to worship him at mass;
The religion of the Bible to abandon and disown,
And bow, like Indian savages, before his gloomy throne.
The Orangemen of Ireland to meet him were not there
To snaffle him, to baffle him, and break his wily snare.

When Satan’s own defenders raised their heads in ninety-five,
‘Tis true of them, but few of them can now be found alive,
When they struck the weak and timorous with terror and affright,
And traversed all the provinces in multitudes by night.
The Orangemen of Ireland then started to their post,
Confronted them, and hunted them, until the cause was lost.

When Sampson, and when Emmet, in the days of ninety-eight,
Had plotted a rebellion to destroy the Church and State;
When the rebels they had organised, with muskets took the field,
To make the Lord Lieutenant and legislators yield,
The Orangemen of Ireland, unaided and alone,
Undaunted stood, and shed their blood, and conquered for the throne.

Though watching for calamity on Britain’s happy land,
To massacre the Protestants in readiness they stand;
Though their Demagogues have told us that the night we ought to watch,
When the murderer shall raise his hand to lift our bedroom latch;
The Orangemen of Ireland, all steady to the Crown,
May rise again with might and main, and put the reptiles down.