If I Should Fall From Grace With God Lyrics

Lyric discussion by Paddy1640 

Cover art for If I Should Fall From Grace With God lyrics by Pogues, The

Sorry to my Irish cousins but America doesn't teach proper history. Let me try:

If I should fall from grace with God Where no doctor can relieve me If I'm buried 'neath the sod But the angels won't receive me

(this is saying that if Ireland is coerced away from the Catholic Church, the heavens won't receive them - it has to do with the Protestant Reformation and England's penal laws - when England committed genocide on the Irish in the 1640s. Of 1.6M, the English killed 600K Irish and sent another 300K abroad as slaves - mostly to America - SURPRISE and hello! YES. There were WHITE salves in America. By 1650 there were more Irish Catholic Slaves in America than there were English colonist. Still are too!)

Let me go down in the mud Where the rivers all run dry (if we fall from grace, then there's no salvation - we simply die and the rivers run dry aka the after life is void)

This land was always ours Was the proud land of our fathers It belongs to us and them Not to any of the others

(refers to the English invasion & colonization of "NORTHERN IRELAND." You know - occupation. The English forced Scottish salves - after committing the same genocide there and taking over its country - into NORTHERN IRELAND. The land of OUR fathers belongs to us, by way of our fathers and belongs to no other. Like Scott-Irish who are still beholden to the UK - unlike the rest of Ireland)

Bury me at sea Where no murdered ghost can haunt me

(the murdered ghosts are Ireland's forefathers, who haunt the land taken from them b/c of their faith - Roman Catholic vs Protestants. BTW Ireland. We are the 2nd largest nationality in America with the largest denomination - but we miss OUR LAND too)

If I rock upon the waves Then no corpse can lie upon me (so many Irish were killed by the English that people were buried upon one another)

Bury me at sea, Where no murdered ghost can haunt me (the Wild Geese aka the Irish sent abroad as slaves. So many Irish were killed on slave ships that bodies littered the ocean & were likened to bread crumbs leading the way to County Cork from the port of NYC - and later Boston)

In closing - the Irish in America made up 1/3rd of the Union Army. My ancestors fought under Col Corcoran & General William T Sherman. We fought ("Fighting Irish" - see Fr Corby. Notre Dame) & earned our right to FREEDOM & INDEPENDENCE. Whats troubling to me, is now some IRISH want to go back to DEPENDING on Govt (RULERS)

NO NAY NEVER. NO NAY NEVER NO MORE!

Song Meaning

Paddy1640. I believe that your answer hit the nail on the head: "(this is saying that if Ireland is coerced away from the Catholic Church, the heavens won't receive them - it has to do with the Protestant Reformation and England's penal laws....." it makes alot of sense. These Irish song I like and I understand there meanies "Men Behind The Wire", "Broad Black Brimmer"," The Foggy Dew","James Connolly" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and The Cranberries "Zombie".

Paddy1640,

Thank you for the explanation. I also honor my Irish ancestry, and agree that there is little if any "European-American" history taught in schools in the US. Sad to say, there'll never be clamor for an "Irish History Month"! Though I do respect the honor you have for your ancestors, and thus would not disparage them, please consider: During the incorrectly-dubbed "Civil War," the South (considerably Celtic in ancestry) fought for independence from the US government for the same reasons as our Colonists (including my ancestors) fought against King George: secession from a government deemed too powerful, abusive...

Thank you for the history lesson. It always amazes me what the schools either don't or don't intentionally teach about slavery...Massachusettes led the states in the slave trade and if it were not for the factories of the north the cotton would not have required slaves to work the southern fields. When it comes to prejudice and racism, no man is without it. Some just hide it deeper than others. It's a great song, but I was more impressed with your lesson :) Thanks again.