Down behind the communal garages,
Our knees were scabbed and scarred,
Badges of honour, to ten-year old savages,
Earnt in chasis' of burnt out cars.
There, on the side of a wall,
Nineteen-Sixteen, had been daubed in emulsion,
Just another target for our ball,
To find its meaning ? we had no compulsion.
It was a circular Nine, like a giant comma,
And the Six was rotund, as well,
Against all the rules Sister Mary of the Immaculate Madonna
taught, in those hand-writing classes from hell.
It was similar to a giant 1690,
I'd seen in another part of town,
On the gable-end of a property emptied,
Before an our street versus your street showdown.
Then one day, the Old Fella' explained,
In 1916 we stood up for ourselves,
A pride in our nation regained,
As the G.P.O. was shook to its shelves.
"Son, we tired of crawling on our belly,
Being beaten, battered and conned,
Surely you've heard me talk of Connolly ?"
I said, Yeh he's me favourite James Bond.
But this was Liverpool, Nineteen Seventy-Two,
And me Da' had been over here years,
What he was on about, I never had a clue,
Though it was the first time I ever saw him shed tears.
100 YEARS AGO, THIS EASTER. HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY.