Famine Lyrics by Sinead O'connor

Famine Lyrics

    ok, i want to talk about ireland
    Specifically i want to talk about the "famine"
    About the fact that there never really was one
    There was no "famine"
    See irish people were only allowed to eat potatoes
    All of the other food
    Meat fish vegetables
    Were shipped out of the country under armed guard
    To england while the irish people starved
    And then on the middle of all this
    They gave us money not to teach our children irish
    And so we lost our history
    And this is what i think is still hurting me

    See we're like a child that's been battered
    Has to drive itself out of it's head because it's frightened
    Still feels all the painful feelings
    But they lose contact with the memory

    And this leads to massive self-destruction
    Alcoholism, drug addiction
    All desperate attempts at running
    And in it's worst form
    Becomes actual killing

    And if there ever is gonna be healing
    There has to be remembering
    And then grieving
    So that there then can be forgiving
    There has to be knowledge and understanding

    All the lonely people
    Where do they all come from

    An american army regulation
    Says you mustn't kill more than 10% of a nation
    'cos to do so causes permanent "psychological damage"
    It's not permanent but they didn't know that
    Anyway during the supposed "famine"
    We lost a lot more than 10% of our nation
    Through deaths on land or on ships of emigration
    But what finally broke us was not starvation
    But it's use in the controlling of our education
    School go on about "black 47"
    On and on about "the terrible famine"
    But what they don't say is in truth
    There really never was one

    (excuse me)
    All the lonely people
    (i'm sorry, excuse me)
    Where do they all come from
    (that i can tell you in one word)
    All the lonely people
    Where do they all belong

    So let's take a look shall we
    The highest statistics of child abuse in the eec
    And we say we're a christian country
    But we've lost contact with our history
    See we used to worship god as a mother
    We're suffering from post traumatic stress disorder
    Look at all our old men in the pubs
    Look at all our young people on drugs
    We used to worship god as a mother
    Now look at what we're doing to each other
    We've even made killers of ourselves
    The most child-like trusting people in the universe
    And this is what's wrong with us
    Our history books the parent figures lied to us

    I see the irish
    As a race like a child
    That got itself basned in the face

    And if there ever is gonna be healing
    There has to be remembering
    And then grieving
    So that there then can be forgiving
    There has to be knowledge and understanding

    All the lonely people
    Where do they all come from
    All the lonely people
    Where do they all come from
    We stand on the brink of a great achievement
    In this ireland there is no solution
    To be found to our disagreements
    By shooting each other
    There is no real invader here
    We are all irish in all our
    Different kinds of ways
    We must not, now or ever in the future,
    Show anything to each other
    Except tolerance, forbearance
    And neighbourly love
    Because of our tradition everyone here
    Knows how he is and what god expects him to do.

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