The Silent Valley Dam

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John Thorpe

John Thorpe or Thorp (c.1565–1655?; fl.1570–1618) was an English architect. more »

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Up near Moolieve Mountain, where the winds blow wild and free
Where the Kilkeel River makes its way down to the sea
The misty Mourne Mountains there they tower as they stand
Watching the still waters of the Silent Valley Dam
The sound of children's voices it once made the valley ring
The foxes on the mountain howled and the birds they loved to sing
They called it Happy Valley in the days before the dam
Before the hand of man it came to alter natures' plan

The last to leave was Jimmy Shiels and he got little thanks
To those who knew and loved him he was Jimmy of the Banks
The friendships and the solitude, the heather and the turf
This was Jimmy's kingdom, it was heaven here on earth
But in the name of progress surely something always dies
And now the Happy Valley far beneath the water lies
So raise your glass to times gone past and listen while you can
And I'll tell you all the story of the Silent Valley Dam

Way up in Belfast city you could hear the hue and cry
With the houses, mills and factories the town was running dry
So they came in search of water to the hills of County Down
They found what they were looking for and called it Watertown
The call went out for men who wouldn't shirk when life was rough
The kind of man that you could trust when the going it got tough
They came across the mountain tracks they'd known since they were born
The men who'd built the Back Ditch, the Iron Men of Mourne

Then Carson cut the first sod in his fancy city shoes
And someone said, get digging boys, there's lots of work to do
The birds they stopped their singing and all around the glen
Was the noise and the dust and the engine thrust of the steam navvy men
While Rudolph Valentino flickered on the silent screen
Round the clock, work never stopped by man or by machine
Legends grew and stories flew in the streets and in the bars
And the Silent Valley men became the heroes and the stars

There was Mad Harry Lovatt, the Silent Valley boss
He'd sack you soon as look at you if something made him cross
Sam Breeze and Dan Dooley in his Ruston No. ten
Flattened Fox's Knowe and Walker's Height to level out the glen
A constable called Lawless kept the peace despite his name
And the mighty Longstone Blarger kept the men all on their game
Jim and Willie Newell loved the music and it flowed
On the fiddle and melodeon they'd play The Mountain Road

Now every inch of progress it was won with sweat and blood
Digging for rock bottom in the days before the flood
And the men down in the trenches often got by on a prayer
Two hundred feet below the ground in the mud and the compressed air
The engineers, the navvies, the railmen, and the boss
They all pulled together boys to get the wall across
And when the dam was finished in the year of thirty-three
The water flowed to Belfast town and the homes of you and me

As always there's a price to pay when man with nature strives
And the Valley took eight mothers' sons who paid it with their lives
The wall they built from Moolieve across to Slievenaglogh
Is their monument forever in the solid mountain rock
For the part they played and the mark they made with the shifts that they put in
Sam Cooke and Johnny Murphy, Mick Sinnett and Hugh Quin
John Cousins, William Forsyth, George Phillips, Jimmy Bains
History will remember them, the story's in their names

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