Lyrics Famine - Sinead O'Connor

Famine

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 its 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 its 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
'Cause 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 its 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 ²)
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 bashed 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
JOHN HUME’S VOICE ¹:
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
MAN’S VOICE ²:
Because of our tradition everyone here
Knows who he is and what God expects him to do