the skin as black as coal line, is a bit suspect, the rare ould times is reactionary in the sense it is backward looking as regards the social comment of it
here are the lyrics

Ring a ring a rosie as the lights declines,
I remember Dublin City in the rare oul times.

Raised on songs and stories, heroes of renown,
The passing tales and glories, that once was Dublin town,
The hallowed halls and houses, the haunting children's rhymes,
That once was Dublin city, in the Rare Oul Times.

Ring a ring a rosie as the lights declines,
I remember Dublin City in the rare oul times.

My name it is Sean Dempsey as Dublin as could be
Born hard and late in Pimlico in a house that ceased to be
My trade I was a cooper, lost out to redundancy
Like my house that fell to progress my trade's a memory

And I courted Peggy Dignan, as pretty as you please,
A rogue and child of Mary, from the rebel liberties,
I lost her to a student chap, with skin as black as coal,
When he took her off to Birmingham, she took away my soul.

Ring a ring a rosie as the lights declines,
I remember Dublin City in the rare oul times.

The years have made me bitter, the gargle dims me brain
'Cause Dublin keeps on changing and nothing seems the same.
The Pillar and the Met have gone, the Royal long since pulled down
As the grey unyielding concrete makes a city of my Town.

Ring a ring a rosie as the lights declines,
I remember Dublin City in the rare oul times.

Fare thee well sweet Anna Liffey, I can no longer stay,
And watch the new glass cages, that spring up along the quay,
My mind's too full of memories, to old to hear new chimes,
I'm a part of what was Dublin, in the Rare Oul Times.

Ring a ring a rosie as the lights declines,
I remember Dublin City in the rare oul times.

Ring a ring a rosie as the lights declines,
I remember Dublin City in the rare oul times.

it seems conservative and against change as well as backward-looking nothing about the terrible slums of Dublin Some criticism of the grey concrete and town planning, was Dublin city so great in the rare ould times apparantly

It is Dublin that is most notorious in this respect, particularly in the city's tenements. The city had, 100 years ago, the worst housing conditions of any city in the United Kingdom. What was particularly striking about Dublin's extensive slums was that they were not limited to the back streets or to ghettos. 29 Sep 2012

so dublin in 1912, had terrible slums

Tenement conditions were still lousy in the 1930s, evictions of tenants flea infested slums in 1934 the lyrics of this song do not deal with that at all. The lyrics of Rare Ould Times look back at the 1912 and the 1930s Dublin slums through rose tinted spectacles