You true sons of Erin, come now raise your voice,

The day is our own – we have cause to rejoice –

For the Sassanagh tyrants will soon have a fall,

And peelers and proctors must go to the wall.

 

And its down with knavery,

And Saxons, and slavery,

 

Hurra, for the Whitefeet and bold Captain Rock.

Too long had the cold-hearted Saxons their way,

And the gay sun of Freedom in bigotry lay;

Too long has a stranger filled Tara’s gold throne;

But we’ll soon have a king and a crown of our own.

 

And its down, &c.

 

Oh! brave Captain Rock; he knows how very well

To make tyrants know their ‘Lord God from Tom Bell;’

And the parson and plunderer vengeance will feel,

For, by Jove, he won’t spare either bullet or steel,

 

And its down, &c.

 

Be his creed what it may – let what will be his hue,

Whether Papist or Bibleman, Quaker or Jew;

Each land-jobbing rascal and proctor must know,

That brave Captain Rock is the cock that must crow.

 

And its down, &c.

 

And the dead time of night when the task-masters sleep,

Their Sassanagh souls in their heart?s blood we’ll steep;

Their houses we’ll burn, their castles destroy,

For bold Captain Rock is no dove-hearted boy.

 

And its down, &c.

 

Source: Portlaoise local history library – Tom LaPorte Jan 2007

This charming ditty in support of a midlands version of the Whiteboys was sung in the 1830s.