Lyrics to the Kevin Barry Ballad

Here are the lyrics to the ballad about Kevin Barry that I found on the Internet.

“In Mountjoy Jail, one Monday morning,

High upon the gallows tree,

Kevin Barry gave his young life

For the cause of liberty.

Just a lad of 18 summers,

Yet there’s no one can deny

As he walked to death that morning

He proudly held his head on high.

Just before he faced the hangman,

In his dreary prison cell,

British soldiers tortured Barry

Just because he would not tell

The names of his brave comrades

And other things they wished to know.

“Turn informer or we’ll kill you!”

Kevin Barry answered, ‘No!’

Another martyr for old Ireland.

Another murder for the crown.

Whose brutal laws may kill the Irish,

But can’t keep their spirits down.

Lads like Barry are no cowards.

From the foe they will not fly.

Lads like Barry will free Ireland.

For her sake they’ll live and die.”

“Kevin Barry” is a popular Irish rebel song recounting the death of Kevin Barry, a member of the Irish Republican Army, who was hanged on November 1, 1920. He was 18 years old at the time, one of a group of IRA members executed in 1920–21 collectively known as The Forgotten Ten. This ballad was penned shortly after his death by an author whose identity is unknown. It is sung to the melody of “Rolling Home to Dear Old Ireland.” It has been performed by many Irish groups including The Wolfe Tones, The Clancy Brothers, Paul Robeson, and Leonard Cohen. I remember Rev. Paul Cullen, OSM (1939-2012), who was from Tyrone, Northern Ireland, often singing this song. One of the most enduring popular Irish songs, this ballad has been largely responsible for making Kevin Barry a household name. It was said to be so popular during the Troubles that it was banned. It was one of many Irish rebel ballads removed from RTÉ playlists during the period of the conflict in Northern Ireland. My father, Gene or Owen Finnegan, was four years older than Kevin Barry, but was part of the IRA in 1920 in Ireland. Three years later, he left Ireland, to not return until I was there in 1962 and 1966. Have you ever heard of Kevin Barry?

On the road to Savannah, Georgia

On Thursday morning, June 11, 1987, we set out for Savannah, Georgia. We stopped in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for lunch at the old Choo-Choo Train Station in town. Then it was on the road again to Savannah on the Atlantic Ocean, our first destination. We stayed two nights, June 11 and 12, 1987, at the Best Western in Savannah that is still there. Friday, June 12, the four of us took a bicycle ride through the city as we rented bikes from the historic Savannah Foundation. Savannah attracts millions of visitors each year to its cobblestone streets, parks, and notable historic buildings. In 2019, Savannah attracted almost 15 million tourists from across the country and around the world. Savannah has consistently been named one of “America’s Favorite Cities”” by Travel + Leisure. The interesting places include the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA, the Georgia Historical Society, and the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences. We saw Johnson Square, City Hall, the Davenport House, Forsyth Park Fountain, the Confederate States Army Memorial, and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Baptist from 1876. We rode our bikes along Historic River Street and the River Front that looked out into the harbor bay and the Atlantic Ocean. We had a great day riding around on our bikes, stopping when we wanted to stop. Savannah’s downtown area included the Savannah Historic District, with 22 parklike squares, and the Savannah Victorian Historic District. Downtown Savannah largely retains the General James Oglethorpe’s original town plan, who was sent by King George II to create a buffer south of the Savannah River to protect the British Carolinas from Spanish Florida and French Louisiana. That Friday evening, we went to have dinner along the waterfront at Kevin Barry’s Restaurant, named for an Irish patriot who was hung by the British in 1920 at the age of 18, a little younger than my father, who was in the same IRA. Thus, we got to sing Irish songs at Kevin Barry’s place on 117 W. River Road in Savannah. This restaurant opened in 1981, but closed in 2019. Have you ever been to an Irish Pub?

The culture of Kentucky

Kentucky culture is firmly Southern, but influenced by Appalachia folklore. The biggest day in American horse racing is the Kentucky Derby, preceded by the two-week Derby Festival in Louisville. Associated with Kentucky, Churchill Downs, the home of the Derby, is a large venue with a capacity exceeding 165,000 people. The fourth-largest city in Kentucky, Owensboro, gives credence to its nickname of “Barbecue Capital of the World” by hosting the annual International Bar-B-Q Festival. Barbecue, bluegrass music, and college basketball dominate in Kentucky. The Louisville Slugger baseball bats are made there. Kentucky Fried Chicken with Colonel Sanders is a main stay of American life. Old Louisville has the largest Victorian Historic neighborhood in the USA. Fairview was the birthplace of Jefferson Davis, who would become President of the Confederate States of America. Hodgenville, the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, hosts the annual Lincoln Days Celebration. Glasgow mimics Glasgow, Scotland by hosting the Glasgow Highland Games. Sturgis hosts “Little Sturgis,” a mini version of Sturgis, South Dakota’s annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Kentucky is famous for quilts, since the National Quilt Museum is in Paducah with an annual QuiltWeek. The Kentucky Music Hall of Fame was established in 2002. Stephen Foster (1826-1864) wrote many great American songs including “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Old Folks at Home.” There were many music stars from Kentucky, the Everly Brothers, Merle Travis, Loretta Lynn, and Billy Ray Cyrus. Mildred and Patty Hill, two Louisville sisters, composed the tune to the ditty “Happy Birthday to You” in 1893. Kentucky also produced Bluegrass music with Bill Monroe, “The Father of Bluegrass,” with Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, David “Stringbean” Akeman, Louis Marshall, “Grandpa” Jones, Sonny and Bobby Osborne, and Sam Bush. The Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum is in Owensboro, while the annual Festival of Bluegrass is held in Lexington. Kentucky was also home to famed jazz musician Lionel Hampton. Blues legend W. C. Handy and R&B singer Wilson Pickett also spent considerable time in Kentucky. Actress and singer Rosemary Clooney has her own annual music festival bearing her name. Kentucky has played a major role in Southern and American literature, producing works that often celebrate the working class, rural life, nature, and explore issues of class, the economy, and family. Major works from this state include Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1908) by John Fox Jr., All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren (1946), The Dollmaker (1954) by Harriette Arnow, and Night Comes to the Cumberlands (1962) by Harry Caudill. The northern part of the state lies across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, which is home to the NFL and MBL teams. College Basketball enjoys significant popularity in Kentucky, with the University of Kentucky’s Rupp Arena, and the University of Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center ranking 2nd and 3rd in capacity among college basketball arenas. The Kentucky Wildcats are particularly notable, leading all Division I programs in all-time wins, win percentage, NCAA tournament appearances, and being second only to UCLA in NCAA championships. Thus, Kentucky is a great place for music, literature, and sports. What do you think about the music from Kentucky?

The state of Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the USA that borders seven states, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the northeast, Virginia to the east, Tennessee to the south, and Missouri to the west. Its northern border is defined by the Ohio River, while the western border is the Mississippi River, and the Big Sandy River and Tug Fork are to the east. Kentucky has the second-most navigable miles of water among USA states, second only to Alaska. The capital is Frankfort and its most populous city is Louisville. As of 2024, the state’s population was approximately 4.6 million. Previously, Kentucky was part of colonial Virginia, but was admitted into the Union as the fifteenth state on June 1, 1792. This bluegrass state references its bluegrass, a species of grass introduced by European settlers, which has long supported the state’s thoroughbred horse industry. The fertile soil in the central and western parts of the state led to the development of large tobacco plantations, like those in Virginia and North Carolina, which utilized enslaved labor prior to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Kentucky has historically been a major coal producer, but the industry has been in decline since 1980. Kentucky produces 95% of the world’s supply of bourbon whiskey. Kentucky ranks fifth nationally in goat farming, eighth in beef cattle production, and fourteenth in corn production. While Kentucky has been a long-standing center for the tobacco industry, its economy has diversified into non-agricultural sectors. Kentucky ranks fourth among USA states in the number of automobiles and trucks assembled. The precise etymology of the name is uncertain. Kentucky was a heavily divided slave state during the American Civil War. Kentucky was officially admitted into the Confederacy on December 10, 1861, as the 13th Confederate state with full recognition in Richmond. The epicenter of the 1811–12 New Madrid earthquakes was in Kentucky, causing the Mississippi River to flow backwards in some places. Lake Cumberland is the largest artificial American lake east of the Mississippi River by volume. Cumberland Gap was the chief passageway through the Appalachian Mountains in early American history. Cumberland Falls is the only place in the Western Hemisphere where a “moonbow” may be regularly seen, due to the spray of the falls. African-Americans today make up only 8% of the state’s total population, with a large 65% Protestant church presence. The Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani is in Bardstown, Kentucky. Author Thomas Merton had converted to Roman Catholicism as a young man, and became a Trappist monk at this monastery, where he lived and worked from 1941 until his death in 1968. Fort Knox, a United States Army post, is best known as the site of the USA Bullion Depository, which is used to house a large portion of the USA official gold reserves. Have you ever been to Kentucky?

Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

This cave system has formally been known as the Mammoth–Flint Ridge Cave System since 1972, when a connection was discovered between Mammoth Cave and the even longer system under Flint Ridge to the north. There are more than 426 miles of passageways that have been surveyed, over 1.5 times longer than the second-longest cave system in Mexico’s Sac Actun underwater cave. This park was established as a national park on July 1, 1941, and named a World Heritage Site on October 27, 1981, an international Biosphere Reserve on September 26, 1990, and an International Dark Sky Park on October 28, 2021. The purpose of Mammoth Cave National Park is to preserve, protect, interpret, and study the internationally recognized biological and geologic features and processes associated with the longest known cave system in the world. Mammoth Cave developed in thick Mississippian-aged limestone strata capped by a layer of sandstone, which has made the system remarkably stable. New discoveries and connections add several miles to this cave each year. Margaret, as a science teacher, was the most excited about this cave. I know we took a morning tour, but I do not know which one. I have three brochures and seven postcards from inside the caves. Human activity in Mammoth Cave can be traced back five thousand years. Throughout the 19th century, the fame of Mammoth Cave would grow so that the cave became an international sensation. Within the cave there are speleothems, derived from secondary deposits, concrete, lime, or mortar, from outside the cave environment. They have labeled the six most common types as flowstones, columns, drapery, stalagmites, stalactites, and straws. A speleothem is a geological formation made by mineral deposits that accumulate over time in natural caves. Speleothems most commonly form in calcareous caves due to carbonate dissolution reactions. They can take a variety of forms, depending on their depositional history and environment. Their chemical composition, gradual growth, and preservation in caves make them useful paleoclimatic proxies. More than 300 variations of cave mineral deposits have been identified. I never quite understood all the different varieties, but they looked spectacular. I had a hard time figuring out the stalagmites, from the stalactites. In the afternoon, we went to the Cave City Action Park, featuring the alpine slide that is still going today. Joy and Katie really enjoyed this. Then we finished our day with a swim in the hotel pool. Have you ever been to a large cave?

Cave City, Kentucky

Tuesday and Wednesday evening of June 9 and 10, 1987, we stayed at the Cave City Best Western, that still exists today. The impressive Mammoth Cave National Park has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, featuring the longest cave system in the world. The Mammoth-Flint Ridge Cave System features 400 miles of underground passageways accessed through gateways in Cave City and Bowling Green. Cave City, in Barren County, Kentucky, has a population of 2,356, within an area of 4.4 square miles off I-65, exit 53, with Louisville about 85 miles north. The Knob City Land Company surveyed and laid out the town with the main streets 80 feet wide. They began to sell lots about the same time as the Louisville & Nashville Railroad came through Barren County. The first train arrived in at Cave City in 1859. The town took its name from a cave within the town limits, not nearby Mammoth Cave. The Wigwam Village Motel, built in 1937, is one of Cave City’s unique attractions, in the Historic National Register as one of only three now in existence. Mammoth Cave National Park is a national park in south-central Kentucky, encompassing portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest known cave system in the world, 52,007 acres. The Green River runs through the park, with a tributary called the Nolin River feeding into the Green River just inside the park. Have you ever been to Cave City?

The birthplace of Abraham Lincoln

On Tuesday, June 9, 1987, we set out on our southeastern journey. This time, it was four of us, Margaret, my wife, Joy, my daughter, and her friend, Katie Fote, and me. We headed out east on I-80, then south on I-65 to see the farm lands of Indiana. Our first stop was in Indianapolis, Indiana, to have lunch at Union Station, right next to the Hoosier Dome. A few years later, we would come back to this Hoosier Dome to watch Joy march in the Grand Nationals Marching Band competition. Then, it was on to Kentucky to visit Hodgenville on Tuesday afternoon, in LaRue County, Kentucky, the county seat, along the North Fork of the Nolin River with a population of 3,206 in two square miles, 12 miles southeast of Elizabethtown via Kentucky Route 61. Why go to this small town? Robert Hodgen, a Pennsylvania native who moved to Virginia, purchased 10,000 acres of land in this area. In 1789, after the Revolutionary War, when settlers started moving west into Kentucky, he built a mill at this site. After his death, the community that developed around it was called Hodgenville based on the petition of his widow and children. The city was formally incorporated by the Kentucky state assembly in 1836. What makes this small-town special is that it has the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park. Abraham Lincoln was born in a small cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville on February 12, 1809, over two hundred years ago. About two years later, the family moved to another farm in the Hodgenville area. Despite claims made later, the original log cabin Lincoln was born in was likely destroyed by the time of his assassination, but they have a replica cabin, which was built thirty years after his death, the “Traditional Lincoln Birthplace Cabin.” Preservation of these two national sites allows visitors like us to see the landscape of the earliest period of Abraham Lincoln’s life. The Lincoln Museum is opened for visitors downtown, with two bronze Abraham Lincoln statues standing in the town square, one of Lincoln as a child, the other as an adult. Right now, I live less than a hundred yards from Lincoln Park in Chicago that has a standing statue of Abraham Lincoln. Margaret was surprised to see something about Lincoln that was not in Springfield, Illinois, since every year she brought the eighth-grade class to Springfield on a field trip. I have a couple of postcards from there. Have you ever been to Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace?

Happy Birthday -2026!

Yes, it is that time again. It is May 25, 2026, my birthday. Today I turn 87. During the last seven years I have tried to write about my life. In 1987, I was only 48 years old. Thus, in seven years of writing this blog, I have been able to cover approximately seven years each year. In seven more years, I will have covered by entire life and more. However, that assumes that I live to be 94 years old. I never expected to live to be 87, when I started this blog back in 2019. I always wanted to be 14 and in eighth grade, when I was in grade school. Then I wanted to be 18 and a senior in High School, when I was in high school. I thought that 21 seemed like a long time to live. Then I realized that I was over the hill at 30. I remember thinking that I was getting old at 50. Then I turned 60 and it did not seem that old. I blew by 65, and decided to retire at 74, because I did not think that I would make 80. At 70, I realized that the Required Minimum Distribution of my 401K was based on the premise that I would live to 100. That was encouraging. Now of all things, I am 87 today. No matter how you count, that really does seem old. Sometimes, I feel as good as I felt twenty or thirty years ago. I do walk slower and less often since my hip replacement operation on January 7, 2026, after I fell down and broke my hip at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy. It has taken me a longer time to recover than I had expected. I do not like to lift heavy things, but then I never did like lifting heavy objects. I am not as agile as I once was. When I lay down or sit down, I feel like I am in my thirties or forties. I only remember how old I am when I try to get up out of my seat, as I find it harder to get out of a chair. However, people say that you are only as old as you feel. Sometimes, I feel like I have lost my younger feeling. However, it is a great blessing to have lived this long. So many people in this world, never get to appreciate their teenage years, their twenties, their thirties, their forties, their fifties, their sixties, their seventies, or their eighties. Thus, I lived all those years, trying to learn more about life as I went along. As one of my favorite songs says, “But I really don’t know life at all.” Every day is a new wonderful experience. I try to remember all the days of yester year. Some I have forgotten, while others I can still remember. This blog is my attempt to remember and write about some of my past experiences. They may seem dull to you, but for me they were exciting times. What do you remember about your life?

A Trip to the Southeast

Where should we go for our summer vacation? We had gone to California, the Northeast, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, the Appalachians, and the Rocky Mountains. I thought that we should go the southeast, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, along the Atlantic seacoast. Thus, I planned a car trip through Indiana and Kentucky with a stop at Mammoth Cave. Then it would be on to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Savannah, Georgia on the Atlantic Ocean. Heading north, we would visit the island of Fort Sumter, off Charlestown, South Carolina, where the American Civil War began. After a visit to Charlestown, there would be time to enjoy the South Carolina coast line at Myrtle Beach, and the Atlantic shore line with all its amusements. Then we would through North Carolina to Virginia’s Hampton Beach, as we would visit Yorktown and Jamestown. Of course, we were going to stop in Williamsburg, Virginia. Then it was on to Richmond, Virginia, and Annapolis, Maryland to see the Naval Academy there, since we had visited the Air Force Academy the year before. We finished up our trip with a visit to Washington, DC, before we made the fourteen-hour 700-mile one day trip back to Matteson, Illinois. Since Joy had graduated from grade school, we brought along her good friend, Katie Fote. Katie was surprised that we did not have air conditioning in our car. Other than that, she and Joy had a good time. Have you ever been to the southeastern Atlantic shore?

Tear Down this wall!

On June 12, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate, then President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech commonly known by a key line from the middle part, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Reagan called for the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to open the Berlin Wall, which had encircled West Berlin since 1961, 26 years. The following day, The New York Times carried Reagan’s picture on the front page, below the title “Reagan Calls on Gorbachev to Tear Down the Berlin Wall.” Its impact on the Kremlin became widely known after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In the post-Cold War era, it was often seen as one of the most memorable performances of an American president in Berlin after John F. Kennedy’s 1963 speech “Ich bin ein Berliner.” This was not the first time Reagan had addressed the issue of the Berlin Wall. In a visit to West Berlin in June 1982, he stated, “I’d like to ask the Soviet leaders one question, “Why is the wall there?” In 1986, 25 years after the construction of the wall, in response to the West German newspaper Bild-Zeitung asking when he thought the wall could be removed, Reagan responded, “Today.” There was some dispute before the speech whether to include this remark in the speech. Arriving in Berlin on Friday, June 12, 1987, Reagan and his wife were taken to the Reichstag where they viewed the wall from a balcony. Reagan then gave his speech at the Brandenburg Gate at 2:00 PM, in front of two panes of bulletproof glass shielding him from East Berlin. Regan said, “We welcome change and openness. We believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The speech received relatively little coverage from the media. This speech was not really elevated to its iconic status until 1989, after the wall came down. Former West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said he would never forget standing near Reagan when he challenged Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. In an interview, Reagan said that the East German police did not allow people to come close to the wall, which prevented the citizens from experiencing the speech at all. In November 2019, a bronze statue of Reagan was unveiled at the USA embassy, near the site of this speech. Have you ever heard about this speech?