'Twas on good Friday morning all in the month of May,
a German ship was
signaling beyond there in the Bay,
we've twenty thousand rifles here, all ready for to land.
But no answ'ring signal
came from the lonely Banna Strand.
A motorcar was dashing through the early morning gloom
a sudden crash,
and in the stream they went to meet their doom,
two Irish lads were dying there just like their hopes so grand,
they
could not give the signal now from lonely Banna Strand.
'No signal answers from the shore', Sir Roger sadly said,
'No comrades
here to welcome me alas they must be dead,
but I must do my duty and at once I mean to land',
so in a boat he pulled
ashore to lonely Banna Strand.
The German ship was lying there with rifles in galore,
up came a British
ship and spoke 'No Germans reach the shore.
You are our Empire's enemy, and so we bid you stand,
no German foot shall
e'er pollute the lonely Banna Strand.
They sailed for Queenstown harbour, said the Germans, 'We're undone,
the
British are our masters man for man and gun for gun,
we've twenty-thousand rifles here, but they never will reach the
land,
we'll sink them all and bid farewell to lonely Banna Strand.
The R.I.C. were hunting for Sir Roger high and low,
they found him at
McKenna's Fort, they said, 'You are our foe'
said he 'I'm Roger Casement I came to my native land,
I meant to free
my countrymen on the lonely Banna Strand.
They took Sir Roger prisoner and sailed for London town.
And in the Tower
they laid him as a traitor to the crown
said he, 'I am no traitor,' but his trial he had to stand,
for bringing German
rifles to the lonely Banna Strand.
'Twas in an English prison that they led him to his death,
I'm dying for
my country' he said with his last breath,
he's buried in a prison yard far from his native land,
and the wild waves
sing his Requiem on the lonely Banna Strand