Originally recorded for Songs of Ireland. Remastered for The Holy Grail of Irish Drinking Songs.
mandolin autoharp recorde
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Story behind the song
Dedicated, no doubt, to the Irishman's love of funerals and whiskey, Finnegans Wake supplied the theme for James Joyce's famous novel of the same name.
Lyrics
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 for 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
round the flure yer trotters shake
Bend an ear to the truth they tell ye,
we had lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake
One morning Tim got rather full,
his head felt heavy which made him shake
Fell from a ladder and he broke his skull, and
they carried him home his corpse to wake
Rolled him up in a nice clean sheet,
and laid him out upon the bed
A bottle of whiskey at his feet
and a barrel of porter at his head
His friends assembled at the wake,
and Widow 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, auvreem! O, why did you die?",
"Will ye hould your gob?" said Paddy McGee
Then Maggie O'Connor took up the cry,
"O Biddy" says she "you're wrong, I'm sure"
Biddy gave her a belt in the gob
and sent her sprawling on the floor
Then the war did soon engage,
t'was woman to woman and man to man
Shillelagh law was all the rage
and a row and a ruction soon began
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
Now the spirits new life gave the corpse, my joy!
Tim jumped like a Trojan from the bed
Cryin will ye walup each girl and boy,
t'underin' Jaysus, do ye think I'm dead?"