Carrickfergus (Live)

I wish I was in Carrickfergus Only for nights in Ballygrand I would swim over the deepest ocean Only for nights in Ballygrand But the sea is wide and I cannot swim over And neither have I the wings to fly I wish I had a handsome boatman To ferry me over, my love and I My childhood days bring back sad reflections Of happy times I spent so long ago My boyhood friends and my own relations Have all past on now like melting snow I'll spend my days in this ceaseless roving Soft is the grass and my bed is free Oh but to be back now, in Carrickfergus On that long winding road, down to the sea Now in Kilkenny it is reported On marble stone there as black as ink With gold and silver I would support her But I'll sing no more now 'til I get a drink For I'm drunk today and I'm seldom sober A handsome rover from town to town Ah but I'm sick now my days are numbered Come all ye young men and lay me down Good evening Well, during the period 1939 to 1945 There was a very big war going on all over the world They called it World War II everywhere, except, of course, in Ireland Where we called it The Emergency Now, during this Emergency England had suffered a lot from air raids and all that stuff, so They sent for some of our fellas to go to England and Help to rebuild essential services Like houses and roads and bridges and Probably a few pubs While they were there, I suppose they helped To make England into a fit place for Irish people to live in And a lot of the lads who went over that time Found work with a man by the name of Mr. Robert McAlpine, as he was then called But in the meantime he did away with so many paddies That they saw fit to make a lord out of him And on his deathbed He didn't die in a building, he died in a bed And when he was dying in his bed, his last words were Or so they say, was If the men wish to honour my memory Let them keep two minutes' silence But keep the mixer going, and keep paddy behind it And this is about him and his little gang