Finnegan’s Wake
 
Traditional
 
Whack fol de da, will you dance with your partner,
around the floor, your trotters shake.
Isn’t it the truth I told ye, lots of fun at Finnegan's wake!
 
Tim Finnegan lived in Watling Street,
a gentleman, Irish, mighty odd. 
He had a brogue both rich and sweet,
and to rise in the world he carried a hod. 
Now Tim had a bit of the tipplin' way,
with a love of the whiskey he was born.
To help him on his work each day,
a drop of the cray-thur every morn. 
 
One morning Tim was feeling full,
his head was heavy which made him shake.
 He fell from the ladder and broke his skull
and they carried him home his corpse to wake. 
They wrapped him up in a nice clean sheet
and they laid him out upon the bed. 
With a bucket of whiskey at his feet
and a barrel of porter at his head.
 
His friends assembled at the wake
and Mrs. Finnegan she did call for lunch. 
First she gave them tay and cake,
then piped tobacco and whiskey punch. 
Biddy O'Brien began to bawl
"Such a lovely corpse, did you ever see?
"O Tim, mavourneen, why did you die?"  
"Arragh, hold your gob" said Paddy McGhee!
 
Then Maggie O'Connor took up the job;
"O Biddy," says she, "You're wrong, I'm sure".  
Then Biddy gave her a belt in the gob
and left her sprawlin' on the floor. 
The hell of war did soon engage,
‘twas woman to woman and man to man.
Shillelagh law was all the rage
and a row and a ruction soon began.
 
Then Mickey Maloney ducked his head
when a bottle of whiskey flew at him. 
He ducked and, landing on the bed,
the whiskey scattered over Tim!
The body revives! See how he rises!
Timothy rising from the bed.
Saying, "Whirl your whiskey around like blazes! 
Be the thundering Jayses do you think I'm dead?"