Johnston's Motor Car is an Irish rebel song written by Willy Gillespie based on the commandeering of a motor car belonging to a Doctor Johnston by the Irish Republican Army.
The song was very popular in Ireland in the 1920s before being rediscovered and covered by bands like The Dubliners and Flying Column (music group), although the more modern versions have slightly different lyrics; Johnston is often replaced with Johnson as well, as in the Clancy Brothers version.
The song describes how an Irish Republican Army unit needed transport to a town over fifty miles away, but had no car to carry them. They decided to call out Doctor Johnston and then ambush him and his car at a railway bridge and commandeer the car for the IRA. The song is based on real events.
Read more about Johnston's Motor Car: Lyrics (Popular), Lyrics (Original)
Famous quotes containing the words motor and/or car:
“What shall we do with country quiet now?
A motor drones insanely in the blue
Like a bad bird in a dream.”
—Babette Deutsch (1895–1982)
“Fifty years from now, it will not matter what kind of car you drove, what kind of house you lived in, how much you had in your bank account, or what your clothes looked like, But the world may be a little better because you were important in the life of a child.”
—Anonymous. Quoted in The Winning Family, by Louise Hart, ch. 1 (1987)