The Munster Fusiliers

Come pass the call 'round Munster.

Let the notes ring loud and clear.

We want the merchant and the squire.

The peasant and the Peer.

For we mean to whip those Germans,

So away with your paltry affairs

And come join that grand Battalion

Called the Munster Fusiliers

The Kaiser knows each Munster

By the shamrock on his cap

And the famous Bengal tiger

Ever ready for a scrap.

With all his big battalions,

Prussian Guards and Grenadiers,

He feared to face the bayonets

Of the Munster Fusiliers

When marching up through Belgium

Sure we thought of days of old.

The cruel sights that meet your eyes

Would make your blood run cold

To see the ruined convents

And the Holy nuns in tears.

By God on high avenge or die

Cried the Munster Fusiliers

God rest our fallen comrades.

May they take their long last sleep

On the fields of France and Flanders.

Sure, we have no cause to weep.

For their deeds will live in history

And the youth of future years

Will read with pride

Of the men who died.

The Munster Fusiliers.

Image: Rescue of the nuns of Ypres by the Munster Fusiliers, December 1914 from Supplement Gratis with the Weekly Freeman, St. Patrick's Day Number, March 13th, 1915, © National Library of Ireland.
Text: Words of a song published during the Great War and reprinted in History Ireland magazine Spring 1998.