The Juice Of The Barley

In the sweet country Limerick one cold winter’s night
All the turf fires were burning when
I saw the light
And a drunken old midwife was tipsy with joy
As she danced round the floor with her slip of a boy
Singing “Ban-ye na mo is an gow-na
And the juice of the barley for me.”

Well when I was a gassoon of eight years old or so
With me turf and me primer to school I did go
To a dusty old school house without any door
Where lay the school master blind drunk on the floor

At the learning I wasn’t such a genius I’m thinking
But I soon bet the master entirely at drinking
Not a wake or a wedding for five miles around
But meself in the corner was sure to be found

One Sunday the priest read me out from the altar
Saying “You’ll end up your days with your neck in a halter
And you’ll dance a fine jig betwixt heaven and hell.”
And the words they did frighten, the truth for to tell

So the very next morning as the dawn it did break
I went down to the vestry the pledge for to take
And there in that room sat the priests in a bunch
Round a big roaring fire drinking tumblers of punch

Well from that day to this I have wandered alone
I’m a jack of all trades and a master of none
With the sky for me roof and the earth for me floor
And I’ll dance out my days drinking whiskey galore