Tim Finigan’s Wake

Tim Finigan lived in Walker street,
A gentle Irish man, mighty odd,
He’d a beautiful brogue, so rich and sweet,
And to rise in the world he carried a hod;
But you see he’d a sort of tripling way,
With a love for poor liquor poor Tim was born,
And to help him through his work each day,
He’d a drop of the creatur’ each morn.


Whack, hurrah! Blood and ‘ounds! Ye sowl, ye!
Welt the flure, ye’re trotters shake!
Isn’t it the truth I’ve told ye?
Lots of fun at Finigan’s wake.

One morning Tim was rather full,
His head felt very heavy, which made him shake,
He fell from the ladder and broke his skull,
So they carried him home his corpse to wake;
They rolled him up in a nice clean sheet,
And laid him out upon the bed,
With fourteen candles around his feet,
And a couple of dozen around his head

Whack, hurrah! Blood and ‘ounds! Ye sowl, ye!
Welt the flure, ye’re trotters shake!
Isn’t it the truth I’ve told ye?
Lots of fun at Finigan’s wake.

His friends assembled at his wake,
Missus Finigan called out for the lunch;
First they laid in tay and cake,
Then pipes and tobacky, and whiskey punch.
Miss Biddy O’Brien began to cry,
Such a purty corpse did ever you see?
Arrah! Tim avourneen, an’ why did ye die?
Och, none of your gab, sez Judy Magee.

Whack, hurrah! Blood and ‘ounds! Ye sowl, ye!
Welt the flure, ye’re trotters shake!
Isn’t it the truth I’ve told ye?
Lots of fun at Finigan’s wake.

Then Peggy O’Connor took up the job,
Arrah! Biddy, says she, ye’re wrong, I’m shure!
But Judy then gave her a belt on the gob,
And left her sprawling on the flure.
Each side in the war did soon engage,
‘Twas woman to woman, and man to man,
Shillelagh law was all the rage,
An’ a bloody ruction soon began.

Whack, hurrah! Blood and ‘ounds! Ye sowl, ye!
Welt the flure, ye’re trotters shake!
Isn’t it the truth I’ve told ye?
Lots of fun at Finigan’s wake.

Mickey Mulvaney raised his head,
When a gallon of whiskey flew at him;
It missed him, hopping on the bed,
The liquor scattered over Tim.
Bedad! He revives! See how he raises!
An’ Timothy, jumping from the bed,
Cries, while he lathers round like blazes,
Bad luck to yer souls! D’ye think I’m dead.

Whack, hurrah! Blood and ‘ounds! Ye sowl, ye!
Welt the flure, ye’re trotters shake!
Isn’t it the truth I’ve told ye?
Lots of fun at Finigan’s wake.