The H-Block Song was written and performed by Francie Brolly and released in 1976. Brolly was born in Dungiven, County Londonderry in 1947. In his youth Brolly was an acclaimed Gaelic footballer who played for Derry. He also trained and worked as a teacher of Irish Gaelic, a career he came back to recently. Brolly’s first love, however is Irish music and culture. He was raised in a musical family and his wife, Anne, was a professional singer. In 1976 Brolly penned The H-Block Song, a song with intelligent lyrics and obvious Republican sentiment. It was inspired by the British government’s withdrawal of Special Category Status (SCS) for Irish political prisoners, a decision that triggered the prison protests of 1976-1981 and led to the death of Bobby Sands. Brolly’s lyrics take broad aim at the English (“Black Cromwell”) and their Irish policies (“…the conqueror’s ways”). The chorus, however, refers directly to the revocation of Special Category Status (SCS). This policy, Brolly implies, falsely depicts the struggle of Irish Republicans as a criminal act.
I am a proud young Irishman
In Ulster’s hills my life began
A happy boy through green fields ran
And I kept God’s and man’s laws.
But when my age was barely ten
My country’s wrongs were told again
By tens of thousands marching men
And my heart stirred to their cause.So I’ll wear no convict’s uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland’s fight
Eight hundred years of crime.I learned of centuries of strife
Of cruel laws, injustice rife
And I saw now in my own young life
The fruits of foreign sway.
Protesters threatened, tortured, maimed
Division nurtured, passions flamed
Outrage provoked, rights cause defamed
This is the conqueror’s ways.I’ll wear no convict’s uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland’s fight
Eight hundred years of crime.Descendants of proud Connaught clan
Concannon serves cruel Britain’s plan
Man’s inhumanity to man
Has spawned a trusty slave.
No strangers are these bolts and locks
No new design, these dark H-Blocks
Black Cromwell lives while Mason stalks
The bully taunts the brave.But I’ll wear no convict’s uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland’s fight
Eight hundred years of crime.Does Britain need a thousand years
Of protest, riots, death and tears?
Or will this last decade of fears
Of eighty decades spell…
An end to Ireland’s agony
New hope for human dignity
And will the last obscenity
Be this grim H-Block cell.But I’ll wear no convict’s uniform
Nor meekly serve my time
That Britain might brand Ireland’s fight
Eight hundred years of crime.
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This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation:
J. Llewellyn and S. Thompson, “The H-Block Song” (Francie Brolly, 1976)”, Alpha History, accessed [today’s date], https://alphahistory.com/northernireland/h-block-song-francie-brolly-1976/.