Written by J. E. Carpenter.

Twas near Limerick town lived bould Paddy O’Linn,
No boy a shillelagh could so nately spin;
But och! Down his throat, when the whiskey he’d tossed,
Sly Paddy oft found things before they were lost.
From the cabin of widdy O’Connor one day,
A fat little pig, as pigs will, got astray;
Says Pat, “You’re blind drunk, it’s my feelin’s you shock;”
Then he fell o’er the pig, as he gave him a knock;
“Och, piggy,” says he, “’tis good manners you need;
It’s myself you’ve near kilt, you disgrace to your breed.
But my bacon you’ve saved, so to give you your due,
It’s cured you shall be – I’ll make bacon of you.”

The grunter Pat cured, and soon put out of sight,
But the ghost of that pig haunted Pat day and night;
So at last to his riv’rence he went and confessed,
Having that on his mind that he couldn’t digest.
“Och, Pat!” said the priest, “only think of the day
When the widdy shall charge you with stealing away
The pig she looked to for paying her rint.”
“Och, murder!” says Pat, “it’s of that I repint,
And so, if you plaze absolution to say,
It’s a blessed thirteen that I’m willing to pay,
Or I’ll marry the widdy to make her atone;
Since ’twas her flesh I took, I’ll be bone of her bone.”

“You know that can’t be – you would cheat me O’Linn,
To compound a felony’s surely a sin;
And as to repintance, sure what will you say,
When the widdy accuses you at the last day?”
Says Pat, “Will your riv’rence answer me true,
When that time it shall come will the pig be there too?”
“He will,” said the priest, “all your guilt to make plain,
Cheek by jowl with the pig you will stand once again.”
“Then,” says Pat, “it’s all right, absolution or not,
For when that time comes I, an answer have got,
As the pig will be there, I have only to say,
‘Take your dirty ould pig’ – so, your riv’rence good day”