Recorded by Kennedy’s Kitchen on “Music in the Glen”
Raised
on songs and stories, heroes of renown,
G
C G C
Oh, the passing tales and glories, that once were Dublin town; G C D
The
hallowed hills and houses, haunting children's rhymes, G C G C
That once were part of
Ring-a-ring-a-rosie as the
light
declines,
I remember
My name it is Jack Dempsey, as Dublin
as can
be,
Born hard and late in Pimlico, in a house that ceased to be;
By trade I was a cooper, lost out to redundancy,
Like my house that fell to progress, my trade’s a memory.
I courted Peggy Devlan, as pretty as
you
please,
Oh, a rogue and a child of Mary is the rebel Liberties;
I lost her to a student lad, eyes as black as coal,
When he took her off to
The years have made me bitter, drink
has dimed
my brain,
For Dublin keeps on changin', nothing stays the same;
Metropol and Pillar are gone, the Royal’s long since been down,
As the gray unyielding concrete makes a city of my town.
Fare thee well, my Anna Liffey, I can
no
longer stay,
And watch the new glass cages rise along the Quay;
My mind's too full of memories, too old to hear new rhymes,
I'm part of what was Dublin, in the rare old times.