Song Information

Song Title

CASTLEREAGH

Song Lyrics

CASTLEREAGH
Down Sydney town where you meet Castlereagh St
It’s fancy romancy all Gucci & gold
But I’ll tell you now the man it’s named after
Was a traitor a turncoat & a murderer bold
Castlereagh was an Irishman ambitious and ruthless
His family had purchased their peerage of late
Clawed his way up to Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
Just before the rebellion of 1798

CHORUS:So if you go down to Sydney today
You’re sure to meet murder as you go on your way
Just enter a street they’ve called Castlereagh
And ask yourself who gave it that bloody name

He cruelly suppressed the rising in Ireland
Hung priests in their churches burnt farmhouse and crop
Curfews detention torture & killing
A holocaust far worse than even Cromwell’s it was
Conned his own parliament with bribes and sedition
To sign up to Union give freedom away
Reviled by the Irish more than any in history
This is the man they called Lord Castlereagh

CHORUS

To England as minister for war and the colonies
On the killing fields of Europe he plotted with zeal
Then brazenly praised the murders in Manchester
Of the good folk assembled on St Peter’s Field
A time of recession the people were starving
Three thousand souls simply seeking reform
Fifteen men murdered & 600 wounded
When the Kings Hussars charged them with sabres full drawn…CH

When he finally lost office paranoid dejected
His last bloody act was to commit suicide
Yet they conned us in the colonies to honour this tyrant
Their own sons & daughters could never abide
So when the Aussie Republic comes into being
And from merry old England we walk away
Australians let’s all resolve in that moment
To rid the whole country of the name Castlereagh

And here’s what the poet Lord Byron did say
Of England’s vile lackey the Lord Castlereagh
‘Posterity will ne’er survey a nobler grave than this
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh Stop traveller & piss’

CHORUS

‘I met murder on the way
He had a face like Castlereagh’

Song First Line

Down Sydney town when you meet Castlereagh Street

Chords In Text

Chord Tab

Link to Song

soundcloud: brian jonathon

Comments

Word Music Vocals Guitar: Brian Jonathon

Robert Stewart Viscount Castlereagh’s vicious suppression of the 1798 rising in Ireland was but one of the vile acts of his bloody career as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and later British minister for war and the colonies. So reviled was he during his lifetime that Shelley wrote:” I met Murder on the way, he had a face like Castlereagh” and Byron penned an equally damning epitaph quoted in the last chorus of this song. Yet we still honour his name in Australia continuing to name a prominent Sydney street after him, as well as a river and a whole region. I wrote this song to draw attention to this deplorable fact and in the hope, as expressed in the song, that “When the Aussie Republic comes into being and from merry old England we walk away, Australians let’s all resolve in that moment, to rid the whole country of the name Castlereagh”.