An Irish sing song!

The scene "Mary's bar" in John's Gate Street, Wexford......

Outside a drizzly night, cold speckles in the air,
A cold north westerly in off the Irish Sea all the way down from the Arctic.
Inside the small parlour that is Mary’s bar, a steaming throng that is ready fro the singing pubs competition of the Opera festival

The self appointed MC glowers at the expectant, upturned faces of the audience. His height or rather lack of it decrees he clambers onto a chair. He is what is popularly known in Wexford parlance as a “short arse” . A terrier like individual, all piss & vinegar as they say in Ohio.
“Order! Now! Order!
“Ah C’mon for jayze sake, will ye whist! the man’s going to sing…
Go ahead there Tommy!”
The “short arse” like so many short bad tempered curs all over the world barking orders like he was the last man left on the planet,
The assembled, weary downtrodden sheep that they are comply and grudgingly shut up, a few murmurs that attract the evil eye from the terrier

The called on singer clears his throat, opens his mouth, a cavernous hole if ever there was one belying the fact that what follows brings a tear to every eye in the place

When apples still grow in November
When Blossoms still bloom from each tree
When leaves are still green in December
It's then that our land will be free
I wander her hills and her valleys
And still through my sorrow I see
A land that has never known freedom
And only her rivers run free

I drink to the death of her manhood
Those men who'd rather have died
Than to live in the cold chains of bondage
To bring back their rights were denied
Oh where are you now when we need you
What burns where the flame used to be
Are ye gone like the snows of last winter
And will only our rivers run free?

How sweet is life but we're crying
How mellow the wine but it's dry
How fragrant the rose but it's dyingH
ow gentle the breeze but it sighs
What good is in youth when it's aging
What joy is in eyes that can't see
When there's sorrow in sunshine and flowers
And still only our rivers run free


No wonder we Irish are a melancholy bunch, we get out for a few jars, a sing-along and we sing about our history. Our past never escapes us or is allowed to escape. We are prisoners of it, of that there is no doubt.

We drink to forget our past, to escape the chains that bind but instead end up even more glued to its memories. Those of us that break the cycle, that defy the norm are regarded as heretical. Indifference replacing friendship as you leave the circle leaving you to discover that what you perceived as friendship was not friendship at all just perhaps a tolerance, if even that.

The fact that the Irish are portrayed as Drinkers is indeed established. They have no one to blame but themselves but to portray that as a national trait is folly. Every Country that tolerates alcohol has the same pre-occupation with it. To deny it is just plain stupid.

Vistas like the scene described above make me smile & wince at the same time (psychological phenomena like recalled memory can make us physically incredibly dexterous facially!).

Back to the vista,

A few more scoops, time to clear out…the stragglers depart, the halted steps and then the chosen few remain. The deadbolt drawn across the door as the conversation turns to the match next Sunday, “how much is that field worth?”…another song, the tone is more hushed now

Once upon a time there was
Irish ways and Irish laws
Villages of Irish blood
waking to the morning
Waking to the morning

Then the Vikings came around,
turned us up and turned us down
Started building boats and towns,
they tried to change our living
They tried to change our living


Cromwell and the soldiers came,
started centuries of shame
But they could not make us turn,
we are a river flowing
We're a river flowing

Again, again the soldiers came,
burnt our houses, stole our grain
Shot the farmers in their fields
working for a living
They were working for a living

Eight hundred years we have been down,
the secret of the water sound
Has kept the spirit of a man
above the pain descending
Above the pain descending

Today the struggle carries on,
I wonder will I live so long
To see the gates being opened up
to a people and their freedom
A people and their freedom

Once upon a time there was
Irish ways and Irish laws
Villages of Irish blood
waking to the morning
Waking to the morning

...........“Lord, Lamplighting Jayze, will somebody sing something a bit more lively!”…says a Dublin accent in the corner…”Why not yourself if you’re so good at it!”..and he does…


Tim Finnegan lived in Walkin Street,
a gentle Irishman mighty odd
He had a brogue both rich and sweet,
an' to rise in the world he carried a hod

You see he'd a sort of a tipplers way
but the love for the liquor poor Tim was born
To help him on his way each day,
he'd a drop of the craythur every morn

Whack fol the dah now dance to yer partner
around the flure yer trotters shake
Wasn't it the truth I told you?
Lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake

One morning Tim got rather full,
his head felt heavy which made him shake
He fell from a ladder and he broke his skull,

and they carried him home his corpse to wake

They rolled him up in a nice clean sheet,
laid him out upon the bed
with a bottle of whiskey at his feet '
and a barrel of porter at his head

Whack fol the dah now dance to yer partner
around the flure yer trotters shake
Wasn't it the truth I told you?
Lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake

His friends assembled at the wake,
and Mrs Finnegan called for lunch
First she brought in tay and cake,
then pipes, tobacco and whiskey punch

Biddy O'Brien began to cry,
"Such a nice clean corpse, did you ever see,
Tim avourneen, why did you die?",
"Will ye hould your gob?" said Paddy McGee

Whack fol the dah now dance to yer partner
around the flure yer trotters shake
Wasn't it the truth I told you?
Lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake

Then Maggie O'Connor took up the job,
"Biddy" says she "you're wrong, I'm sure
"Biddy gave her a belt in the gob
and left her sprawling on the floor

Then civil war did soon engage,
Woman to woman and man to man
Shillelagh law was all the rage
and a row and a ruction soon began

Whack fol the dah now dance to yer partner
around the flure yer trotters shake
Wasn't it the truth I told you?
Lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake

Mickey Maloney ducked his head
when a bucket of whiskey flew at him
It missed, and falling on the bed,
the liquor scattered over Tim
Bedad he revives, see how he rises,
Tim Finnegan rising from the bed

Saying "Throwing your whiskey around like blazes,
Be the thunderin' Jaysus, do ye think I'm dead?

"Whack fol the dah now dance to yer partner
around the flure yer trotters shake
Wasn't it the truth I told you?
Lots of fun at Finnegan's

.....The remaining choristers are in fits of laughter with joining in as “Finnegan’s Wake” is once more caroled around a bar-room in Ireland. I don’t expect the non-Celt to understand this passage I write but I do beg their indulgence in reading my discourse and contemplating what makes the Celtic mind “tick”.

The helter skelter of emotions, our ability to weep one minute, laugh uproariously the next. Our love of life and all that goes with it. Our love of words – whether it be in song, poetry, literature or conversation is eternal. The adoration of the bard is our true national Character trait.

But don’t take my word for it…if you wish to discover irish literature, you could do no wrong than start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_literature

And that is it in a nutshell..an Irish singsong from the maudlin to the hilarious from one song to the next..much like our conversation, much like our psyche.