The West’s Awake | Scenic Irish Ballad with Lakes & Mountains | Just Iri...

The West’s Awake — A Cry of Freedom from Ireland’s Western Heart

The West’s Awake is one of the great anthems of Irish nationalism — a song that rouses the sleeping spirit of the western counties to remember their courage, their pride, and their duty to a free Ireland.
Written by the 19th-century patriot Thomas Davis, founder of The Nation newspaper, the song appeared during the Young Ireland movement — a time when poetry and song were weapons of conscience against British rule.

In the ballad, Davis calls to the long-silent West — Connacht, Clare, and Kerry, lands that had suffered centuries of invasion, famine, and silence.
“Long, long the West’s asleep,” he writes, lamenting how its proud people have been subdued by poverty and despair.
Yet the song is no elegy — it’s a call to rise.
He recalls how the West once rose for freedom: the men of 1798, the defenders of faith and land, those who refused to bend the knee.

The refrain — “The West’s awake!” — is both prophecy and command.
It awakens the memory of courage, honour, and unity; it tells every Irish listener that freedom begins not in Dublin’s halls, but in the hills and harbours of the West, where the spirit of resistance still burns.

More than a century later, The West’s Awake remains an anthem of pride and revival.
It’s sung not only as a song of rebellion, but of renewal — a reminder that the soul of Ireland can never truly sleep.
Whenever the Irish people gather to sing of their homeland, Thomas Davis’s rallying cry still echoes across the Atlantic wind:

“The West’s awake — may freedom wake it yet again.”



LYRICS

The West's asleep, the West's asleep - 
Alas! and well may Erin weep 
When Connacht lies in slumber deep. 
There lake and plain smile fair and free, 
'Mid rocks their guardian chivalry. 
Sing, Oh ! let man learn liberty 
From crashing wind and lashing sea. 
[2]
That chainless wave and lovely land 
Freedom and nationhood demand; 
Be sure the great God never planned 
For slumb'ring slaves a home so grand. 
And long a brave and haughty race 
Honoured and sentinelled the place. 
Sing, Oh! not even their sons' disgrace 
Can quite destroy their glory's trace. 
[3]
For often, in O'Connor's van, 
To triumph dashed each Connacht clan. 
And fleet as deer the Normans ran 

Thro' Corrsliabh Pass and Ardrahan; 
And later times saw deeds as brave, 
And glory guards Clanricard's grave, 
Sing, Oh! they died their land to save 
At Aughrim's slopes and Shannon's wave. 
[4]
And if, when all a vigil keep, 
The West's asleep! the West's asleep! 
Alas! and well may Erin weep 
That Connacht lies in s1umber deep. 
But, hark! a voice like thunder spake, 
The West's awake! the West's awake! 
Sing, Oh! hurrah! let England quake, 
We'll watch till death for Erin's sake

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