"Famine" lyrics

OK, I want to talk about Ireland

Specifically I want to talk about the "famine"

About the fact that there never really was one

There was no "famine"

See Irish people were only allowed to eat potatoes

All of the other food

Meat fish vegetables

Were shipped out of the country under armed guard

To England while the Irish people starved

And then on the middle of all this

They gave us money not to teach our children Irish

And so we lost our history

And this is what I think is still hurting me

See we're like a child that's been battered

Has to drive itself out of it's head because it's frightened

Still feels all the painful feelings

But they lose contact with the memory

And this leads to massive self-destruction

Alcoholism, drug addiction

All desperate attempts at running

And in its worst form

Becomes actual killing

And if there ever is gonna be healing

There has to be remembering

And then grieving

So that there then can be forgiving

There has to be knowledge and understanding

All the lonely people

Where do they all come from

An American army regulation

Says you mustn't kill more than 10% of a nation

'Cause to do so causes permanent "psychological damage"

It's not permanent but they didn't know that

Anyway during the supposed "famine"

We lost a lot more than 10% of our nation

Through deaths on land or on ships of emigration

But what finally broke us was not starvation

But its use in the controlling of our education

School go on about "Black 47"

On and on about "The terrible famine"

But what they don't say is in truth

There really never was one

(Excuse me)

All the lonely people

(I'm sorry, excuse me)

Where do they all come from

(that I can tell you in one word ²)

All the lonely people

Where do they all belong

So let's take a look shall we

The highest statistics of child abuse in the EEC

And we say we're a Christian country

But we've lost contact with our history

See we used to worship God as a mother

We're suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder

Look at all our old men in the pubs

Look at all our young people on drugs

We used to worship God as a mother

Now look at what we're doing to each other

We've even made killers of ourselves

The most child-like trusting people in the Universe

And this is what's wrong with us

Our history books the parent figures lied to us

I see the Irish

As a race like a child

That got itself bashed in the face

And if there ever is gonna be healing

There has to be remembering

And then grieving

So that there then can be forgiving

There has to be knowledge and understanding

All the lonely people

Where do they all come from

All the lonely people

Where do they all come from

JOHN HUME'S VOICE :

We stand on the brink of a great achievement

In this Ireland there is no solution

To be found to our disagreements

By shooting each other

There is no real invader here

We are all Irish in all our

Different kinds of ways

We must not, now or ever in the future

Show anything to each other

Except tolerance, forbearance

And neighbourly love

MAN'S VOICE :

Because of our tradition everyone here

Knows who he is and what God expects him to do

• Artist:Sinéad O'Connor
• Album:Universal Mother (1994)