Balcony of the Nation
Edited and collected by Fintan Vallely
CONTENTS
Songs and summaries:
ARAB ORANGE LODGE Crawford Howard's fantasy trip about the consequences of exporting the L.O.L. to Damascus.
BALDY SONG On the plight and restorative antics of men who can't handle baldness
BANG BANGÕS DAY The saga of the arrest and exciting scenes surrounding Evelyn Glenholmes in the late eighties Dublin
BEAUTY SPOT GLANLEA Patsy Cronin's imaginary journey around the world based in reading newspapers and atlases (West Cork)
BINDER TWINE Miche‡l Marrinan's verbal extrusions on what to do with the Twine mountain (Clare and Waterford)
BODHRçN SONG Tim Lyon's tale of the fate of a German tourist who went trying to shoot his own goat to make a bodhr‡n
BUFFALO FARM IN ACHILTIEBUIE Scot Andy Mitchell's nightmare of future Highlands development after overhearing a pub discussion on ED grant aid for bison farming.
CHARLES THE NAVIGATOR Charlie Haughey's conquering of the Mizzen head by yacht.
CONFESSIONS OF A BODHRAN PLAYER Taking on the absurdities of the vegetarian bodhran players who see it as a 'natural' instrument.
COOLEA ESB How the 'electric' came to Coolea, West Cork
DAFFODIL MAN FROM KILTYBANE Jim McAllister's effusions on an innocent who happened to suggest flowers to a Crossmaglen publican.
DENTIST FROM FIVEMILETOWN Hugh Collin's tale of how the deed was done in the good old days before modern medicine
DONERAILE LITANY Patrick O'Kelly's curse on the people of Doneraile for having relieved him of a watch he had got from a British monarch.
DRUMSNOT, BEAUTY SPOT Briain O'Rourke's glamorisation of his particular Garden of Eden
DUNNE(S) STOR(I)ES BEATS THEM ALL On Ben Dunne being caught without his pants and off his head on cocaine in Miami
E(?)C SONG Tim Lyons' denunciation of the evils of the EC and its effect on the drinking public
ERRANT APPRENTICE is Bill Watkins' tale of how a soldier lad was given a hard time by the publican's daughter
FAST-FOOD SONG Tim Lyons' excoriation of fast food burgers and trashy eating
FENIAN RECORD PLAYER Crawford Howard's updating of the Ould Orange Flute to the age of primitive technology
FOODAHOLIC Crawford Howard at it again, on compulsive eating and its result.
FREE STATE ADJUDICATOR Joe Mulhearn's scathing satire of public humiliation dealt out to the Ulster song tradition by a Fleadh umpire
G U B U SONG Mickey McConnell's brilliant parody on politicians' gobbledygook.
GENESIS How sex was invented and the background to clerical celibacy
GLASGOW COURTSHIP Adam MacNaughton's parody on the grand hedge-schoolmaster song evocations of the early 19th century
GOATÕS REPLY Fred McCormick's words in the mouth of the sibling of Brian O'Rourke's goat: this one has no notion of being so humiliated.
GOOD LUCK TO YOU MR. GORSKY! Weird sex and intrigue behind the scenes in the first flight to the Moon.
GRISLY MURDER OF JOE FRAWLEY Tim Lyon's tale of drink, love, revenge, grisly murder and prison in rural gombeenland.
HEY RONNIE REAGAN! John Maguire brilliantly becomes all of Ireland's marginalia and tells the big man to get stuffed.
HO CHARLIUM The course of the 1990 Presidential election seen as a horse race at the Phoenix park.
INVITATION TO A FUNERAL The Finnegan's wake theme - the corpse doesn't turn up, the crack is good, rows and fights reduce the party to patheticism.
IRISH JUBILEE A post-famine food-hallucination of over-eating set in Irish America
JOHNNIEÕS SONG How the Gardai set about shutting down the dreaded Well-Woman She-been.
LEITRIM IS A VERY FUNNY PLACE How the natives of Ballinamore refused to talk to RTE in the heat of crisis. How dare they.
LITANY OF A BIG EGO And how RTE broadcasters used feel so important and exclusive in the days when their employer was important because it was exclusive.
MAN FROM DEL MONTE Scorching acerbity from the sadistic quill of master-bard Deagl‡n Talœin of West Cork.
MARTY MALLEY'S TEETH Tale of how he lost them to the desires of a jackdaw, and then got them back.
YOUR PLACE OR MINE? Briain O'Rourke's campaign-tale of the short-lived Gold rush in Co. Mayo
MICE AT IT AGAIN Sean Corcoran's collected woes of the proliferation of mice in the days before poison.
MICK SULLIVANÕS CLOCK The Clock packs it in, goes on tour and is beaten to death.
MILTOWN COCKROACH Con Fada O'Drisceoil's fate at the fangs and talons of beasts of the night in a tent.
MISSING MISSUS MYSTERY How Mrs. Runcie never appeared on the TV when the Bishop went to Rome to sign the cease-fire agreement.
MOVING STATUES MOVEMENT The only economic growth of the 1980s - when even the statues got sick of the rain
NAMES OF TUNES SONG Michael Scanlon assembles all of his repertoire in a seamless medley to the tune of the Swallow's Tail
NELL FLAHERTY'S DRAKE Curses on spectacular curses over the theft of a prized bird
NIGHT THEY RAIDED OWENYÕS Finbar Boyle takes out the Gardai in Medieval style for daring to close down a famed topers' emporium in Dundalk.
NIGHT-CLUBBING SONG M’che‡l O'Marrin‡in's jaunt to the big smoke to taste a bit of the high-life and late-drinking fashionable in the eighties' Dublin.
ON THOSE WHO STOLE OUR CAT, A CURSE wished venomously by poet Michael Hartnett in the spirit of Doneraile, Carey and Nell Flaherty.
OOR HAMLET Adam MacNaughton tells the story as it has never been told, not a word of a lie, and none missing, all to music.
ORDNANCE SURVEY MAN Deagl‡n Talœin applies his lexicography to chart a tale of Herculean proportions for the mundane life of a mere civil servant who is fond of a bit of music.
PADDYÕS LAMENT The fight-back against the 'Paddy' syndrome in industrial England.
PADDYÕS PANACEA Late 19th century sophisticated ramble extolling the efficacy of the pure drop.
PANAMANIA George Bush's desperate stab at fame after Mikhail Gorbachev had stolen all the limelight.
PAPISH GOAT How a Fenian hoofer was kidnapped and irreversibly translated into percussion.
PEELER AND THE GOAT Darby Ryan's 1830s scathing satire on the Peelerhood who had wronged him.
POOL SONG Con Fada O'Drisceoil denounce s the shapeless louts and lussies who spend their lives hooped over the green tables playing with their balls.
QUILTY TURTLE Ciaran O'Drisceoil's fantasy about a beast which somehow got from the Caribbean to Queally's and into a row.
RANGY RIBS Dungiven bard Brian McGuinness's exhaustive dissertation on the colourful life of an unwanted bullock.
RESURRECTION ROMP How it really happened - Intrigue, Jesus, Peter, drink, money and the music scene.
RIGGED OUT Famine years souls-for-clothes trade-off tale
RONALD REGAN BAR How dear Ronnie came to visit Ballyporeen
ROUND THE MICKEY DAM Fightin' Irish again, in defence of victimisation Paddy takes the initiative.
SAFFRON AND WINE Miltown Malbay's tough team unmatched by the matchmakers.
SEALINK SONG Discourse on the absurdity of the Ferryboat evacuation Mayday messages.
SHADES OF ASHGROVE Darby Ryan at his most ridiculously verbose, sending up the English language big-time
SOLID STALLION SPANKER Eoghan Ruadh O'Sœilleabh‡in's ad for the sale of his horse
SWEET BALTRAY Bitterly-derisive tale of a wedding feast for a couple not enjoying the scribe's affections
TRANSIT VAN Sean Mone on the life and times of a border smuggler drawing inspiration from Maggie Maggie Maggie.
TRIP TO FEAKLE Deagl‡n Talœin's surreal account of an innocent music trip by the good people of Coolea.
WATERFORD BOYS The rat trade, the landlord and the clever customer.
WEATHER SONG Classic moan by Tim Lyons of the worst weather in decades.
WEE WHITE TURBAN OF THE P L O Mulhearn's seething parody on the Broad Black Brimmer
WHEN I GROW UP Briain O'Rourke's other life as a kid madly wanting nothing more from life than to be beaten by a German
WILD COLONIAL BOY Mulheron parody that clarifies the internal problems of nationalist Northern Ireland.
WILLIE MAC BRIDE - YOU BASTARD YOU! Crawford Howard's revenge on the Pub-lounge lizard's most popular request.
WILLIE MACRAE Sean Mone gives Book, chapter, verse, line and syllabic analysis of the great man's curled-lip hate-list.