The Butchers Apron - The Wolfe Tones

Where is the flag of England?

Go North, South, East or West

Wherever’s there’s wealth to plunder

Or land to be possessed!

Wherever there’s feeble races

To frighten, coerce or scare

Oh, you’ll find a butcher’s apron

The English flag is there

It waves above blazing hovels

Where Africa’s victims die

To be shot by explosive bullets

Or wretchedly starve and fly

And where the pirate harries

In the isles of sovereign seas

At the peak of the hellish vessel

The English flag is free

The Maori often cursed it

With its bitterest dying breath

And the Arab hath hissed his hatred

As he spat in its fold in death

And the helpless Hindu feared it

And the Kenyan did the same

And the Irish blood has stained it

With a deep and indelible stain

Where is the flag of England?

Go North, South, East or West

Wherever’s there’s wealth to plunder

Or land to be possessed!

Wherever there’s feeble races

To frighten, coerce or scare

Oh, you’ll find a butcher’s apron

The English flag is there

It has floated o’er scenes of pillage

It is flaunted o’er deeds of shame

It has waved above foul marauders

As they ravished with sword and flame

It has looked upon ruthless slaughter

And massacre dire and grim

And it’s heard the shriek of victims

Drowned in the Jingo hymn

Where is the flag of England?

Seek lands where natives rot

Where decay and assured extinction

Must soon be a people’s lot

Go search for once-glad islands

Where death and disease are rife

And the greed of callous commerce

Now battens on human life

Where is the flag of England?

Go North, South, East or West

Wherever’s there’s wealth to plunder

Or land to be possessed!

Wherever there’s feeble races

To frighten, coerce or scare

Oh, you’ll find a butcher’s apron

The English flag is there

Where is the flag of England?

Go sail where rich boats come

With shoddy and loaded cottons

And beer and Bibles and guns

Go where brute force has triumped

And hypocrisy makes its lair

In your question you’ll find the answer

It was or still is there

Where is the flag of England?

Go North, South, East or West

Wherever’s there’s wealth to plunder

Or land to be possessed!

Wherever there’s feeble races

To frighten, coerce or scare

Oh, you’ll find a butcher’s apron

The English flag is there