Good man George,
But cars have no place in Spancil hill on 23rd June as I found out to my cost 15 years ago - and it IS much worse now. You won't even find parking in Clooney.

But here's an interesting ditty. George and Robbie McMahon pointed out an interesting peculiarity to me in "The Song" a couple of years ago. The actual date of the Spancil Hill fair is 23rd june. But the song states;

6th verse line 1
"It being on the twenty third of June, the day before the fair"
& 4th verse line 1
"It being on a Sabbath morning, I thought I heard a bell"

The reason that the 23rd June was "the day before the fair" and not the actual day of the fair, as it would normally be, was because 23rd June was a "Sabbath morning". There was no way that the fair would be held on a Sunday.

So I delved a little deeper and low and behold but in 1872, June 23rd occurred on Sunday. This ties in exactly with Robbie's history of the song as handed down to him by the author's nephew, John Considine.

Robbie was quite chuffed to find this out as it had never occurred to him to check.

Frank