Dublin In The Rare Old Times – Pete St. John
Recorded by Kennedy’s Kitchen on “Music in the Glen,” performed by The Dubliners with Paddy Reilly.
Raised on songs and stories, heroes of renown,
Oh, the passing tales and glories, that once were Dublin town;
The hallowed hills and houses, haunting children's rhymes,
That once were part of Dublin in the rare old times.
Ring-a-ring-a-rosie as the light declines,
I remember Dublin city in the rare old times.
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 Birmingham, he took away my soul.
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.