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NELL FLAHERTY'S DRAKE
Oh, my name it is Neil, quite candid I tell,
And I lived in Clonmell, which I'll never deny,
I had a large drake, and the truth for to speak,
My grandmother left me, and she going to die;
He was wholesome and sound; he weighed twenty pound,
And the universe 'round I would rove for his sake.
Bad luck to the robber, be he drunk or sober,
That murdered Nell Flaherty's beautiful drake.
His neck it was green, he was rare to be seen,
He was fit for a Queen of the highest degree,
His body so white, it would give you delight,
He was fat, plump and heavy, and brisk as a bee;
My dear little fellow, his legs, they were yellow,
He would fly like a swallow, and swim like a hake.
Until some wicked savage, to grease his white cabbage,
He murdered Nell Flaherty's beautiful drake.
May his pig never grunt, may his cat never hunt,
May a ghost always haunt him in the dead of the night,
May his hen never lay, may his ass never bray,
May his coat fly away like an old paper kite;
May the lice and the fleas the wretch ever tease,
May the pinching north breeze make him tremble and shake,
May a four-year-old bug build a nest in the Iug,
Of the monster that murdered Nell Flaherty's Drake.
May his cock never crow, may his bellows ne'er blow,
And a-pot or po, may he never have one,
May his cradle not rock, may his box have no lock,
May his wife have no smock to shield her back bone,
May his duck never quack, and his goose turn quite black
And pull down the turf with his long yellow beak.
May scurvy and itch, not depart from the breech,
Of the monster that murdered Nell Flaherty's Drake.
May his pipe never smoke, may his teapot be broke,
And to add to the joke may his kettle not boil,
May he lay in the bed 'till the moment he's dead
May he always be fed on lob-scouse and fish oil,
May he swell with the gout, may his grinders fall out,
May he roar, bawl and shout, with the horrid toothache.
May his temples wear horns, and all his toes corns,
The monster that murdered NeII Flaherty's drake.
May his spade never dig, may his sow never pig,
Every nit on his head be as large as a snall,
May his house have no thatch and his door have no latch,
Nay his turkey not hatch, may the rats eat his meal,
May every old fairy fiom Cork to Dunleary,
Dip him in snug and easy in some pond or lake,
Where the eel and the trout may slime in the snout,
Of the monster that murdered Nell Flaherty's Drake.
May his dog yelp and growl with hunger and cold,
May his wife always scold 'till his brain goes astray,
May the curse of each hag, that e'er carried a bag,
Alight on his nag till his beard it turns grey,
May monkeys still bite him, and man-apes affright him,
And everyone slight him asleep or awake,
May weasels still gnaw him, and jackdaws still claw him,
The monster that murdered Nell Flaherty's Drake.
Then all the good news l have to diffuse,
'Tis for Peter Hughes, and blind Peter McFree,
There's big nosed Bob Manson, and buck-toothed Ned Hanson,
Each man has a grandson of my darling Drake,
My bird he had dozens of nephews and cousins,
And one I must get or my heart it will break,
To keep my mind easy or else l'll run crazy,
So this ends the song of Nell Flaherty's Drake.
Recorded by Tommy Makem, Irish Songs of Rebellion
@Irish @rebel @animal @bird
filename[ NELLFLAH
TUNE FILE: NELLFLAH
CLICK TO PLAY
RG
Nell Flaherty's Drake
DESCRIPTION: "Oh, my name it is Neil, quite candid I tell, And I lived in Clonmell, which I'll never deny, I had a large drake..." which she describes in loving terms. One day a thief steals (and kills) the drake. The rest of the song is an extended curse of the thief
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1851 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 11(2612))
KEYWORDS: animal bird curse thief theft
FOUND IN: Ireland Australia Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Meredith/Covell/Brown-FolkSongsOfAustraliaVol2, pp. 128-129, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (1 text, 1 tune)
Henry/Huntingdon/Herrmann-SamHenrysSongsOfThePeople H228b, pp. 18-19, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (1 text, 2 tunes)
O'Conor-OldTimeSongsAndBalladOfIreland, pp. 14-15, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (1 text)
Hayward-UlsterSongsAndBalladsOfTheTownAndCountry, pp. 68-69, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (1 text)
Pottie/Ellis-FolksongsOfTheMaritimes, pp. 80-81, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (1 text, 1 tune)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #1566, p. 106, "Nell Flaugherty's Drake" (2 references)
DT, NELLFLAH*
ADDITIONAL: Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), p. 289, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (1 text)
Roud #3005
RECORDINGS:
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (on IRClancyMakem03)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(2612), "Nell Flaherty's Drake", M. Stephenson (Gateshead), 1838-1850; also 2806 b.11(218), 2806 c.16(21), Harding B 15(216b), 2806 b.11(279), 2806 c.8(306), Johnson Ballads 1220, Johnson Ballads 2696, Harding B 11(2610), Harding B 11(2613), Harding B 11(2614), Harding B 11(2615), 2806 c.16(3a), Harding B 11(2611), "Nell Flaherty's Drake"; 2806 b.9(236), Harding B 26(461), 2806 b.11(132) [lines only partly legible], "Nell Flagherty's Drake"
LOCSinging, as109390, "Nell Flaugherty's Drake", J. Andrews (New York), 1853-1859; also sb30356b, "Nell Flaugherty's Drake"
Murray, Mu23-y1:062, "Nell Flaherty's Drake," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 19C; also Mu23-y4:054, "Nell Flaherty's Drake," unknown (Cork), 19C
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(142a), "Nell Flaherty's Drake," unknown, c. 1845
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Wee Duck (The Duck from Drummuck)" (plot, subject?)
cf. "Betsy Brennan's Blue Hen" (plot, lines)
NOTES [310 words]: Tommy Makem describes this as a song about Robert Emmet (executed 1803). I can't prove it wrong -- but if so, it's the most indirect song I know. Certainly later singers (such as those in Australia) seem to have lost consciousness of any anti-British sentiment. For background on Emmet, see "Bold Robert Emmet" and the songs cited there.
Percy French wrote a song, "Flaherty's Drake," based loosely on this, but it is clearly a separate song. - RBW
I have not found "Nell Flaherty's Drake" collected in Newfoundland but Johnny Burke's "Betsy Brennan's Blue Hen" is so close that he must have known "Nell Flaherty's Drake." There is no entry for "Nell Flaherty's Drake" in Newfoundland Songs and Ballads in Print 1842-1974 A Title and First-Line Index by Paul Mercer.
Commentary to broadside NLScotland L.C.Fol.70(142a): "'Nell Flaherty's Drake' is an anonymous Irish ballad from the nineteenth century. The drake of the title is believed to be a coded reference to Robert Emmet (1778-1803), who helped to plan and led an uprising against British rule in Dublin in 1803. The uprising went wrong after an explosion at an arms depot, and Emmet was captured and hanged for his part in the uprising and the assassination of the Lord Chief Justice. Irish Home Rule was a volatile subject in Britain in the nineteenth as well as the twentieth century, hence the coding in this song."
This song has the same relationship to "The Bonny Brown Hen" [this adds a villain and curses] that "Betsy Brennan's Blue Hen" has to "Blue Hen" on MacEdward Leach and Songs of Atlantic Canada site, copyright owner Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive.
Broadside LOCSinging as113120: J. Andrews dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
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