Look Who it Was Random video

Guitar: James Connolly

1,656 views · Published 21 June 2009 · 3:27 · Indexed 20 October 2026

Channel: threelegsoman · 2009 · Music

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The Wolfe Tones start their recording of this song with a short moving poem written by the sound of it by one of the firing squad who had the misfortune to be picked for this horrific duty. James Connolly, Commander of the Republican Army at the time was severely wounded and had to be strapped to a chair for the execution. This is the poem that introduces the Wolfe Tones' version of the song:

The man was all shot through that came to day into the Barrack Square
And a soldier I, I am not proud to say that we killed him there
They brought him from the prison hospital and to see him in that chair
I swear his smile would, would far more quickly call a man to prayer
Maybe, maybe I don't understand this thing that makes these rebels die
Yet all men love freedom and the spring clear in the sky
I wouldn't do this deed again for all that I hold by
As I gazed down my rifle at his breast but then, then a soldier I.
They say he was different, kindly too apart from all the rest.
A lover of the poor-his wounds ill dressed.
He faced us like a man who knew a greater pain
Than blows or bullets ere the world began: died he in vain
Ready, Present, and him just smiling, Christ I felt my rifle shake
His wounds all open and around his chair a pool of blood
And I swear his lips said, "fire" before my rifle shot that cursed lead
And I, I was picked to kill a man like that, James Connolly

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