Limey Scum

The Mannions were exploring their roots today at an Irish Fest at a park the next county over.  There was music, of course.  A group singing the old songs and songs that weren't so old but sounded like they were.  Being Irish, many of the songs had melancholy themes and tragic subjects and they would break your dear old mother's heart if she heard them.  I am not sufficiently Irish to enjoy them the way a good son of the ould sod should and whenever I know I'm going to be someplace where I'll have to listen to tin whistles, bodrhans, and high-pitched quavering voices I start singing to myself my favorite old Irish ballad, which I learned from an episode of Cheers:

They broke into our Dublin home,

The dirty English dogs,

They took away my sister,

And they beat my dad with logs.

Everybody!

Limey scum, Limey scum!

I toss a bomb and still they come...

The blonde doesn't like it when I sing this.  She says it's because I sing it 50 times before I give it up, but it's really her Irish chauvinism.  She thinks the song is a travesty and an unfair travesty, at that.

Is it now?

Here are the actual lyrics to one of the songs we heard today.  It's not a true old song.  It's by a living musician, name of Tommy Makem, and it's called Four Green Fields.

"What did I have?" said the fine old woman
"What did I have?" this proud old woman did say
"I had four green fields, each one was a jewel
But strangers came and tried to take them from me
I had fine strong sons, they fought to save my jewels
They fought and died, and that was my grief" said she

"Long time ago" said the fine old woman
"Long time ago" this proud old woman did say
"There was war and death, plundering and pillage
My children starved by mountain valley and sea
And their wailing cries, they shook the very heavens
My four green fields ran red with their blood" said she

"What have I now?" said the fine old woman
"What have I now?" this proud old woman did say
"I have four green fields, one of them's in bondage
In stranger's hands, that tried to take it from me
But my sons have sons, as brave as were their fathers
My fourth green field will bloom once again" said she

I rest my case.  Now.

Everybody!

Limey scum!  Limey Scum!

Comments

[evets]

My blood is boiling and I'm not even Irish. Thanks for these truth-soaked words.

[Jim]

Both the Limey scum and the Paddy scum need to forget their ancestral feuds and stop acting like Sunnis and Shiites.

[Kevin]

If there's something about our country that annoys me more than fake Irishmen, I'm not sure what it is.

[Jaquandor]

Oh my God, that's my favorite episode of Cheers ever, and I've been trying to find those lyrics for just as long. Thanks!

"And now for a sad song....'Twas a baby's crib...."

[Bill Altreuter]

Me dear old Auntie used to sing Four Green Fields to me-- I'd believed all these years that it was the real deal-- and I guess it is, since it meets all the criteria for an Authentic Irish Song. They come in two varieties: maudlin and deedle deedle. When the song is over you are supposed to say, "That was lovely, Sean. Let's have another."

[Lance]

Bill,

I think Makem might have rewritten a traditional song. Four Green Fields is the name of too many Irish pubs for a recent song to have baptized. And, yep, your description of the two kinds of Irish music is exactly right, maudlin and deedle deedle, although occasionally you'll hear a maudlin deedle deedler.