Isn't "Koko" Irish Gaelic for "Hot To Trot"? I think it was the P-Celt root word for "Curragh", the name of the racetrack in Kildare, but I'll have to check my references.

Yup, I was correct (I'd say I was right, but Amos would chide me for being a Republican).

Anyway, the original races were between BIG Irishmen who were doing their best to escape amorous apes. The apes were mostly females, but once in a while one of the Irishmen got a surprise and was captured by a male. They would then repair to the local for a pint and fag, this being the days when you could smoke in the pubs, and write songs about the English depressors.

All of this happened long before Strongbow's boys, of course, even before all of the Irish bull happened at Cooley. The Irish were happy and would tell happy tales of wars and hurly and chopping off their own hands and other happy things, but their physicians were short of short flat wooden boards with which to hold down the Irish tongue when peering down Irish throats. These had to be imported from England (which was then called "East Eire Land" from which evolved our word "England") and whenever they were used the usee went for days without telling jokes or tales about Huck Fianna, one of the national heroes.

Which is why the boards were called "English Depressors" and why males would go ape writing songs about them. (These songs were usually written during the second ringing of the Angelus. The bellringers of Ireland almost always fouled up the first ringing, and so the bell had to be rung a second time. This is why the songs about the "English Depressors" are also called "Re-bell songs.")