Ballybay - The Prodigals

In the town of Ballybay-hay

There was a maiden dwelling.

I knew her very well

And her story’s worth a telling.

And her father kept a still,

And he was a good distiller…

When she took to drink as well

Well the devil couldn’t fill her

A ring-a-dom a doo, a ring-a-dom a delly

She had a wooden leg it was hollow down the middle

She used to tie a sting in it and play it like a fiddle

She fiddled in the hall, she fiddled in the alleyway

She didn’t give a damn sure she had to fiddle anyway

A ring-a-dom a doo, a ring-a-dom a delly

She said she wouldn’t dance unless she had her welly

But when she had it on she would dance as well as any.

Once said she wouldn’t go to bed unless she had her shimmy

But when she had it on she would go as quick as any.

A ring-a-dom a doo, a ring-a-dom a delly

She had lovers by the score every Tom, Dick and Harry

And she courted night and day but still she wouldn’t marry

Then she fell in love with a fellow with a stammer

When he tried to get away, she hit him with a hammer

A ring-a-dom a doo, a ring-a-dom a delly

Greg:"Andrew Harkin on bass!"(bass solo)

Childer on the stairs and childer in the pyre

And another ten or twelve sitting rolling by the fire

And she fed him on potatoes

and a soup she made with nettles

And a lot of hairy bacon that she boiled in a kettle

A ring-a-dom a doo, a ring-a-dom a delly

She led a sheltered life, eating porridge and black pudding.

And she terrorized her man until he died quite sudden.

And when her husband died she was feeling very sorry

She rolled him in a bag and she threw him in a quarry