I haven't heard the song re. "Oul' de Valera" and the (uncharacteristically generous) bounty per child, though I've heard others in a similar vein delivered by those who can do them justice. Many of the jokes I heard of the kind instanced above are really the records, probably improved in the telling, of witty ripostes made ex tempore by various local characters ("Worthies" as they would once have been called in Scotland). One such was "Tramp McG-----", born in the year of 1848 and living till he was "well over the hundred"; he said he was starting the second century a hell of a lot healthier than he started the first. Anyway, he is said to have asked a Nun about the ring on her finger, and got the conventional reply about being married to Christ. "The dear-me-save-us!" said he, as he always does in these short tales, "but ye aimed high for a husband." Good Luck, ABCD. * It's often said that there's not a road in Ireland named after "The Chief" because none could be found that is long enough and crooked enough. Actually there's a Bothar de Valera in Letterkenny. Donegal is different.
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