DELANEY'S CHICKEN

1. Delaney from the market bought a fowl a month ago.
If he meets the man who sold it, he will kill him with a blow.
He said it was a chicken of a plump and tender breed,
But of a more deceitful bird you'll never hear nor read.
When they settled down to pluck it, all their efforts were in vain.
Their hands were torn and blistered and their muscles had a strain;
So dressed in all its feathers, they put it down to stew.
If you want to drive Delaney mad, shout Cockle doodle doo.

CHORUS: Oh, this bird must have crown when they built the tower of Babel,
Fed by Cain and Abel,
Lived in Noah's stable.
All the shots that were fired on the field of Waterloo
Would not penetrate or dislocate
This elongated, armour-plated,
Double-breasted, iron-chested
Cockle-doodle—doooooooooooo!

2. Delaney bought the chicken just to give us all a spread.
On Sunday when the guests arrived, he went clean off his head.
In the yard were picks and shovels that were twisted up like tin
That he tried to carve the chicken with, but couldn't break the skin.
We borrowed Daly's hammer with which he rams the stones,
And thought one gentle tap would break the tender chicken's bones.
At the first blow, it rebounded like an Indian rubber ball
And knocked ten yards of coping off Mulhanney's garden wall.

3. Mick Dunne the ex-dragoon then tried to excavate the thing,
But the sword he carved the Roosians with bent like a yard of string.
Tom Burke, the navvy miner, through this young bird showed daylight
By blowing up himself and it with a pound of dynamite.
To scrape the walls for chicken wasn't very easy work.
It puzzled us to work out which was chicken, which was Burke.
I found a leg of chicken and with friendly blacksmith's aid,
A pair of everlasting heels upon my boots I made.