Beresford

Words and Music by Brendan Nolan
Ould Segosha Music
Key of E minor

This story comes from a chance meeting in Montreal back in the eighties with Phil Beresford of Newfoundland. He told me about an ancestor who had left Ireland in the circumstances described in the song. He started the name of Beresford on the island of Newfoundland. Phil found out about it himself when he was studying to be a Missionary priest at All Hollows Seminary in Drumcondra on the north side of Dublin. It had once been where the Beresfords lived. I kind of ran with the story so some of it is, as they say, "makey-uppey"!

CHORUS

Beresford oh Beresford
you're far from the land
Keep your eye on the future
to the shores of Newfoundland
Left behind your family
your title and the rest
To spend your whole life
with the one you love the best

A family of foreign blood
not bidden by command
They came onto the soil
by plantation through the land
North of Dublin city
their home was made to rest
And with the riches of the conquered land
their lives were surely blessed
Now Beresford an Alderman
of cruel and savage ways
Drumcondra house he lived his life
it stands unto this day
In the fateful year of '98
rebellion swept the land
It was in his bloody dungeons
many suffered by his hand

CHORUS

Now Beresford he had a son
the mirror of his wife
With the bright eyes of his mother
who died to give him life
Now a man of twenty-one
and heir onto his home
his life was mapped out for him
by his father years before
The young man could ne'er describe
this thing that touched his soul
Like the freshness of a new day
through his body she did flow
A servant girl had won his heart
it ne'er could be the same
And her lovely face he'd seen each morn
till his dying day

CHORUS

What treachery is this I hear
you bring into my home
servant girl and a catholic
you will never make your own
You'll marry in your own kind
you're promised, t'will be done
And the sons you'll have will do the same
and keep this family strong
A ship is ready to set sail
She waits upon the pier
Anxious and uncertain
till young Beresford is there
No longer can I stay here
nor be my father's son
Our fate is sealed together love
Oh let what will be done

CHORUS