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about

Written by Kate O'Callaghan

"After entering the GPO on Easter Monday, 1916, Catherine Rooney (neé Byrne) was sent to Hibernian Bank to take up duty there with a couple of other women. They had to cross the street, under fire, in the dark and she describes how the Volunteers were told to hold their fire while they crossed, however bullets still came from the O'Connell St. area. Having stayed the night at the bank she was then asked by a Captain Weafer to go back to the GPO and ask for rations. He told her not to worry, that he would signal that she was crossing so that she would have safe passage. However, when she got to the GPO, she was refused rations until they knew how many men were at the bank and she was asked to go back there, under fire, to get a written message. When she did this, she describes how she rolled the message up and put it in her mouth, before running back over to the GPO.
While delivering these messages and later dispatches, Catherine describes running through tenement houses and climbing over walls and balustrades. She encountered several soldiers on her way whom she had to lie to, always using the story that she was an innocent girl trying to get home to her sick mother. What struck me most was the kindness she encountered from people she met on the way. She refers to people offering her tea and one woman even giving her an armchair to rest in for the night".

lyrics

Here I come, hold your fire
Here I run, hold your fire
Here I come, don’t shoot me down
Here I run, you offered me safe passage

If I could lay, lay my head down
Lay, lay my head down

Here I come, I am the messenger
I run through streets on fire for you
Through alleyways and barricades
The fear of God is in me but I’ll stay true

If I could lay, lay my head down
Oh lay, lay my head down

Is it the unrelenting drive to meet requests?
Or the kindness of the woman who offers rest?
That makes us more than hand maidens?

If I could lay, lay my head down
Lay, lay my head down
If I could lay, lay my head down
Lay, lay my head down

Here I come, hold your fire
Here I run, hold your fire

credits

from The Girl With The Beret, released October 3, 2016
Kate O'Callaghan (Vocals and Guitar)
Seamus Devenny (Drums, percussion and Violins)
Tim Jarvis (Cello)
Martin Smyth (Electric Bass)
Declan McClafferty (Guitar and Pedal Steel)

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Kate O'Callaghan County Donegal, Ireland

Kate O'Callaghan is a singer/songwriter based in Donegal, Ireland. Combining evocative melodies with intelligent considered lyrics, she covers a gamut of styles and emotions from Alt. Folk to Jazzy/Blues, the sublime to the cathartic. Evocative, haunting, poignant and refreshingly uplifting, with a unique aspect that explores the less obvious paths tonally as much as the expected. ... more

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