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Jimmy's Folk Column

June 27, 2008

SONGS OF CORK: ECHO SERIES 287: THE WONDERS OF THE WORLD

We are coming to some racy stuff. Passing through the ancient town of Mountrath a few weeks ago on my cycling tour of the hidden, Middle Ireland, with an eye out for an errant sparrow-hawk mending old shoes, I started to sing this song.

I first heard it at a session in the Wren’s Nest on the edges of Cork city from one of the seminal influences in my career, balladeer Jim O’ Donnell. I couldn’t find that lovely tavern now, because it was on the edge of a different world no longer visible. Jim and his early band used to present a weekly session of “authentic” ballads at the old Group Theatre in South Main Street where there was a designated “ballad room”, no less, at the theatre; such was the influence and demand for ballads during the sixties revival. There was a strange, Rabelaisian undercurrent to the song, as if the poet had tapped into a parallel existence .

The Song of Lies, or an tAmhrán Bréagach, as version are known in Irish, swam away from me for years until I met a wonderful man on lovely Oileán Chléire. Paddy Carey from Cape was a true tradition bearer and the recording I made of him one windswept morning in that sea-girth conurbation is very precious to me. One of the rich native speakers of Irish, his was a lovely Carberry dialect and must be nearest we have to what the Irish along the coast from east of Kinsale must have sounded. Like all things lost, my regret is not having spent more time with Paddy Carey who died some years back. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.

Paddy told me he had learned the song from a ballad supplement which used to accompany the old Cork Weekly Examiner, a wonderful treasure trove for the ethnomusicologist and enthusiast which can be looked up in micro-film at The Library.

Apparently years ago, some poor fellow was up before the judge for whatever crime and the judge being a humorous cove told him before he sentenced him that if he could compose a ballad with no fragment of truth, he could go free. The accused man, whoever he was, was a well-know bard and known to the judge in this capacity. Other people have told me that the bard was likely to be hanged, which must have greatly accelerated his powers of composition. Here is his answer then to the judge, sung to the air of The Hide and Go Seek, a common enough tune in Cork.

Kind people, draw near, come and hear what I’m going to relate
And you’ll be surprised all the wonders that I saw of late:
I saw Cork City in the mouth of a small bantam hen
And Waterford City going down to sit in Spillen.

I saw a small mouse in a house devour a large cat,
And the new Custom House knocked down by the wings of a bat
With the high Shandon Steeple for needle a tailor did sow
And the new brigadier making wigs for the County Mayo.

I saw a small wren make a feast of a bird called the Rock;
Saw a hawk in Dundalk {on a stalk? }and he mending a clock;
A sparrow-hawk in Mountrath {in a vat? }and he mending old shoes
And a skylark with spectacles {on?} and he reading the news.

I saw Dingle town frying Bantry Bay in a pan,
The whole earthly globe turning round in an ould water-can,
A cow that had horns one hundred and fifty feet long
And an owl making brogues and he hammering his leather ding-dong.

I saw an old ram beat a drum in the town of Tralee,
An over-grown pig {in a rig?} at the fair of Ardee,
Heard a blind piper play ninety nine hundred fine songs
And a goat standing by playing Mattie Malone through the thongs.

I saw Mullingar in a car drawn by a jackass
And Newcastle town drawing salt from Carricmacross;
Saw a felt hat that was turned by a baker in Louth
And the long river Shannon without even a salmon or trout.

I saw Enniskillen distilling strong drinks in Athy
And the empress of Greece plucking geese in a village nearby,
I saw a large flea saving hay for the lord of Tyrone
And Kilkenny town going down to visit Athlone.

I saw the Hill of Howth in a boat sailing down to Kildare
The County of Cork set off for the sweet County Clare,
Saw Limerick City sit in a basket of buns
The “Royal George” on Lough Rhee firing off smoke from her guns.

I saw the first man that ever stood on the Earth
And ninety nine times I stood on the place of his birth;
A lark in the air sailing fair for the town of Macroom-
And I saw a blind carpenter driving a nail in the moon.

Instead of pure water I saw whiskey flow in the Lee;
Many more strange sights I’m sure no other did see,
These wonders being great and all without telling a lie:
Where is the man born saw so many wonders as I?