What where the main points of the Irish song " Rody MacCorley"?

Question

What where the main points of the Irish song " Rody MacCorley"?

Answer 1

Basically it was a song that showed his love for his country.  He was Irish and fought against British rule and died for it.

Who was Roddy McCorley

Roddy McCorley, a Presbyterian radical, was a local of the parish in which the village of Toome is included, Duneane. He fought in the 1798 United Irishmen rebellion against British Rule in Ireland but was captured. He was executed by the British on Good Friday, 1799 "near the bridge of Toome", which had been partially destroyed by rebels in 1798 to prevent the arrival of reinforcements from west of the River Bann. His body was then dissected by the British and buried under the road that went from Belfast to Derry until the mid-1800s, when he was dug up and given a proper burial in an unmarked grave. A memorial in honour of McCorley now stands in Toome as you enter the village from County Londonderry.  

The largest industry in Toome is eel fishing, supplying the European market. The eels come from the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean to Lough Neagh to mate. The eel fisheries have been commemorated in a number of poems by Seamus Heaney.

Irish Folk Song - words as follows:

Ho! see the fleetfoot hosts of men

Who speed with faces wan,

From farmstead and from fisher’s cot

Upon the banks of the Bann.

They come with vengeance in their eyes.

Too late, too late are they.

For Rody MacCorley goes to die

On the Bridge of Toome today.

2. Oh Ireland, Mother Ireland,

You love them still the best;

The fearless brave who fighting fall,

Upon your hapless breast;

But never a one of all your dead

More bravely fell in fray,

Than he who marches to his fate

On the Bridge of Toome today.

3. Up the narrow street he stepped

Smiling and proud and young;

About the hemp-rope on his neck

The golden ringlets clung.

There’s never a tear in the blue, blue eyes

Both glad and bright are they;

As Rody MacCorley goes to die

On the Bridge of Toome today.

4. Ah! when he last stepped up that street

His shining pike in hand,

Behind him marched in grim array

A stalwart earnest band!

For Antrim town! for Antrim town!

He led them to the fray –

And Rody MacCorley goes to die

On the Bridge of Toome today.

5. The grey coat and its sash of green

Were brave and stainless then;

A banner flashed beneath the sun

Over the marching men –

The coat hath many a rent this noon

The sash is torn away,

And Rody MacCorley goes to die

On the Bridge of Toome today.

6. Oh! how his pike flashed to the sun!

Then found a foeman’s heart!

Through furious fight, and heavy odds

He bore a true man’s part;

And many a red-coat bit the dust

Before his keen pike-play –

But Rody MacCorley goes to die

On the Bridge of Toome today.



7. Because he loved the Motherland,

Because he loved the Green,

He goes to meet the martyr’s fate

With proud and joyous mien,

True to the last, true to the last,

He treads the upward way –

Young Rody MacCorley goes to die

On the Bridge of Toome today.