On the eighteenth of September
It was a dreadful year
When sorrow and excitement ran
Throughout old Lancashire
At the gathering of the Irish boys
They volunteered each man
To release those Irish prisoners
Out of the prison van
In Manchester one morning
Those heroes did agree
Their leaders Kelly and Deasy
Should have their liberty
They drank the health to Ireland
And soon made up the plan
To meet the prisoners on the road
And take and smash the van
With courage bold those heroes went
And soon the van did stop
They cleared the guards from back and front
And then smashed in the top
But in the blowing open of the lock
They chanced to kill a man
So three must die on the scaffold high
For smashing of the van
One cold November morning
In Eighteen Sixty-Seven
These martyrs to their country's cause
Their sacrifice were given
God save Ireland was the cry
All through the crowd it ran
May the Lord have mercy on the boys
That helped to smash the van