Michael O’Rahilly was leading the charge, a hopelessly wasteful foray.
The English were waiting behind barricades as the Gaels made their desperate play.
Rifles at the ready; they charged up Moore Street, the O’Rahilly leading the way.
Like paper consumed by a flickering flame, their manpower melted away.
O’Rahilly lay dying, but the British just laughed, no aid would they give to the foe.
The cobblestones reeked of the blood on the street as the bodies were laid in a row.
Heroes perhaps have a touch of the poet, a dram of unreason besides,
but everyone knows of the charge of O’Rahilly; Everyone knows how he died.
It was, he well knew, a magnificent gesture, the English be dammed and despised.
He lingered, tis said, for nineteen long hours, immortal or not, he expired.