My name is freedom I sailed o’er privately to this nation,
To roam around from shore to shore and find some true relations,
The neighbours all are kind and free to entertain a stranger,
Yet dare not own me as their own, so I’m exposed to danger.
Chorus:
The rum, the rum, the riddle of the rum,
The rum, the riddle of the rare-o,
The rum, the rum, the riddle of the rum,
To the rum tie tiddle-aye ero.
It was in France our first advance as I may sing with reason,
It shone so bright on a dark dark night and enlightened many nations,
And may its flame be never quenched, but kept in constant blazin’,
Till we extinguish root and seed, I mean those yellow heroes.
In yonder garden grows a weed that gives out deadly odours,
And from its fruit springs forth a tree, by name it is called orange,
It rises so high and spreads so wide by wealth and power nourished,
And when the orange tree droops its head then liberty’s sure to flourish.
So it’s up the mountains we will go to see who dare oppose us,
And if those blue boys dare say no, we’ll cut off all their noses,
We’ll chase them east, we’ll chase them west, we’ll run them off before us,
Till we extinguish root and seed, I mean those yellow heroes.
I got those two songs out of a book long ago
And nobody else sings them that I have heard.
The melody of «The Riddle of the Rum» is by my old friend Seán Chéalaí —
He has a programme on Radio na Gaeltachta called «An chaint sa chathair».