PAROLES: Go! Move! Shift!

The news out of Ireland this week has been grim.
While players took to the field in the Rugby World Cup, mothers and fathers were taking to the cemetery to bury their children burned to death at a Travelers' halting site.
The wave of migrants and refugees pouring into Europe has unsettled the Burghers of Calais but it has also made Europeans (and Irish people, in particular) forget the refugees we already have a responsibility towards: the community of Travelers who never find a welcome; not in Nazi Germany, nor in Stalin's House of Soviets, nor in Holy Catholic Ireland where we can't allow ourselves to believe that they and us are the same people: people who were first chased off their lands by the cruel hand of the invader, and later found company among the starving millions who sought refuge from the hunger of injustice.

Go! Move! Shift!
©Ewan Mc Coll, additional verses by Christy Moore

Born in the middle of the afternoon
In a horsedrawn carriage on the old A5
The big twelve wheeler shook my bed,
"You can't stay here" the policeman said.

You'd better get born in some place else.
So move along, get along, Move along, get along,
Go! Move! Shift!

Born in the common by a building site
Where the ground was rutted by the trail of wheels
The local Christian said to me,
"You'll lower the price of property."

You'd better get born in some place else.
So move along, get along, Move along, get along,
Go! Move! Shift!

Born at potato picking time
In a noble tent in a tatie field.
The farmer said, "The work's all done
It's time that you was moving on."

You'd better get born in some place else.
So move along, get along, Move along, get along,
Go! Move! Shift!

Born at the back of a hawthorn hedge
Where the black hoar frost lay on the ground.
No eastern kings came bearing gifts.
Instead the order came to shift.

You'd better get born in some place else.
So move along, get along, Move along, get along,
Go! Move! Shift!

The eastern sky was full of stars
And one shone brighter than the rest
The wise men came so stern and strict
And brought the orders to evict

You'd better get born in some place else.
So move along, get along, Move along, get along,
Go! Move! Shift!

Wagon, tent or trailer born,
Last month, last year or in far off days.
Born here or a thousand miles away
There's always men nearby who'll say

You'd better get born in some place else.
So move along, get along, Move along, get along,
Go! Move! Shift!

The sleeve notes from 'Live at the Point"
Has two extra verses (added by Christy)

Six in the morning out in Inchicore
The guards came through the wagon door.
John Maughan was arrested in the cold
A travelling boy just ten years old.

You'd better get born in some place else.
So move along, get along, Move along, get along,
Go! Move! Shift!

Mary Joyce was living at the side of the road
No halting place and no fixed abode.
The vigilantes came to the Darndale site
And they shot her son in the middle of the night.

You'd better get born in some place else.
So move along, get along, Move along, get along,
Go! Move! Shift!


Playlist:

Go! Move! Shift!
Christy Moore