Drumsnot - Brian O’Rourke
Oh come all ye pleasant fellow peasants
and listen to my song
It has twenty verses and what’s far worse is,
it’s three times as bad as its long
Oh lend me your ears while I spill the beans
about the place where I was got
For it’s likely that you haven’t much of a clue,
about the place they call Drumsnot
Where my birthplace lies beneath Irish skies
isn’t easy to explain
Its not in the Pale or the Golden Vale,
nor yet in the Central Plain
It affords no view of mountains blue
and it sure is no beauty spot
And to date no county has claimed the bounty
for admitting it owns Drumsnot
Oh, on Inishcarra and Gougane Barra,
on Macroom and on Omagh Town
God poured out air of a fragrance rare
that gained them high renown
On King Williamstown He showered sweetness down,
on Lough Neagh and Glanlee and the lot
But those rare perfumes were all well consumed
by the time that he reached Drumsnot
Ah but savage Nature, that lavish creature,
Drumsnot did not neglect
For its stony fields with hoary weeds
are gaudily bedecked
Them thistles, thorns and bouchalawns
would be an ugly blot
Upon the face of any place
excepting dire Drumsnot
And all around wildlife abounds
and leaps and creeps and crawls
And prowls and scowls and growls and howls,
and fights and bites and bawls
And shrieks and yells and reeks and smells
and kills and the devil knows what
And the ould triangle goes strangle-mangle,
in the jungle around Drumsnot.
Now to sing of the birds, sure I have no words
to express just how I feel
For the sweetest notes in their cheeky throats
are the five pound notes that they steal
The sly magpie he rules the sky
and ruins every garden and plot
And every songster is a fully-fledged gangster
on the rampage around Drumsnot
Oh, we have no fleadh, we’ve no cine-MAH
for to goggle at spectacles lewd
And Tim Lyons couldn’t grouse about our eating-house
that never heard tell of fast food
We’ve two broken down bridges infested by midges
and a gaming machine with no slot
And the meanest street between Kansas and Crete
is the main street of Drumsnot.
Oh now you might guess that Drumsnot’s a place
where old customs they are held dear
And you’d be right for our faction-fights
halve our numbers every year.
But our Gaelic tongue you’ll as soon hear sung
as the speech of the Hottentot
In fact we’re distinguished for unspeakable English
in the backwaters of Drumsnot.
Oh in Ireland’s fight for her birthright
we had no glorious share
For the Black and Tans with their trucks and guns
never knew that we were there
Now they’ve gone away and 'tis sad to say,
things haven’t changed a jot
For in Leinster House neither Minister nor mouse,
gives a sugar about Drumsnot.
Our hedge-master died in eighteen-o-five
and since then we have had no school
And for all we see of C.I.E.
we might as well be in Kabul
Ah but soon we might get th’oul electric light
and then again we might not
And the Christmas mail arrives without fail
around Easter in Drumsnot.
Oh a telephone kiosk or a Shi’ite mosque
would be equal novelties there
So our smoky signals and dopey pigeons
our urgent messages bear
And no motor car has yet got that far
for the Spring Show could justly allot
For sheer scope and size a major prize
to each pothole around Drumsnot.
We’ve no B & B’s, no facilities
for the stranger touring round
No Cead Mile Failte in your tracks will halt you
if you tread on our tainted ground
If you’re tracing your ancestors in parish registers,
I’m afraid you won’t here find a lot
Ah sure japers we barely can point out our parents
in the shambles they call Drumsnot.
If you’ve a low opinion of our dominion,
please don’t broadcast your point of view
For although the locals are yobs and yokels,
they have their fine feelings too
A bass-baritone weighing twenty-two stone
dropped a hint that we weren’t too hot
Well, he sang falsetto as he left our ghetto
and staggered away from Drumsnot.
Oh 'twas in Drumsnot I was begot
and there I squandered my boyhood days
And my youthful deeds they now recede
in an alcoholic haze
When I grew a man, I drew up a plan
and teamed up with a well-endowed mot
Her father owns the Rag and Bones
that’s the only pub in Drumsnot.
By the effluent pump near the rubbish dump,
I courted her right well
And we got engaged within seven days
for she couldn’t stand the smell
Then came the day in the month of May
when we tied the fatal knot
And the wedding do was crubeens for two
in the eating-house of Drumsnot
Now we live in a cabin with the thatch in ribbons
and the rent we can barely pay
And all the roses around the door
won’t keep the wolf away
And all my dreams of pints so creamy,
alas they have come to naught
For supplies of stout they did soon run out
in the only pub in Drumsnot
Oh I wish I was far from the Shamrock Shore
in some place where I might find work
And I tried of late for to emigrate
but I missed my lift to Cork
So to settle down in my native town
has become my doleful lot
And to sink my roots and my hobnail boots
in this dungheap they call Drumsnot
Now as you all know, some years ago,
big blundering Uncle Sam
Tried to lift fifty-one of his native sons
held hostage inside Iran
Ah but isn’t it strange when 'twas all the rage,
that the whole bloody world forgot
To break in and let loose us hundred and two poor hoors,
marooned inside in Drumsnot.
Now, at last I must conclude, arrest
and terminate this desperate ditty
And I hope you good people true
by now feel for me some pity
And when at last my life is past
and my bones have to moulder and rot
I pray God on high they won’t have to lie
in the cemetery of Drumsnot.
