What a marvellous line - "the barley grew up out of the grave".

@FrayedBear I agree about the fine lines of prose , very powerful and evocative. My choice is a more suitable song for today’s Ireland …a free, modern, progressive, democratic country which is independent and prosperous, and with a young highly educated population. The Makim song is a tearjerker and evokes sentimental memories of the past …but 21st century Ireland has moved on in leaps and bounds since the song was written last century,

@Marionville what a wonderful excuse you make for ignoring the hard won benefits arising from human struggle. Like the whore who opens her legs and gets paid - feed the populace material to blind them of the true priceless value of love, solidarity & Cipollan intelligence.

@Marionville Requiem for the Croppies is a Seamus Heaney poem not prose -
[famouspoetsandpoems.com]
Requiem for the Croppies by Seamus Heaney
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley...
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp...
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
A people hardly marching... on the hike...
We found new tactics happening each day:
We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave.

Furthermore Makem only wrote his song in 1967 . . . About 20 years after the Israeli Jews started their genocide of Palestinians.