In another thread, mayomick drew my attention to the fact that there was a connection between Oliver Goldsmith and the Irish alehouse The Three Jolly Pigeons, which is mentioned in the song WHERE THE THREE COUNTIES MEET. Then I found this:

From She Stoops to Conquer: Or, The Mistakes of a Night, Third Edition, (a play) by Oliver Goldsmith (London: F. Newbery, 1773):


S C E N E, An Alehouse Room....

T O N Y.
Then I'll sing you, gentlemen, a song I made upon this ale-house, the Three Pigeons.

S O N G.

Let school-masters puzzle their brain,
With grammar, and nonsense, and learning;
Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,
Gives genus a better discerning.
Let them brag of their Heathenish Gods,
Their Lethes, their Styxes, and Stygians;
Their Quis, and their Quaes, and their Quods,
They're all but a parcel of Pigeons.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

When Methodist preachers come down,
A preaching that drinking is sinful,
I'll wager the rascals a crown,
They always preach best with a skinful.
But when you come down with your pence,
For a slice of their scurvy religion,
I'll leave it to all men of sense,
But you my good friend are the pigeon.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.

Then come, put the jorum about,
And let us be merry and clever,
Qur hearts and our liquors are stout,
Here's the Three Jolly Pigeons for ever.
Let some cry up woodcock or hare,
Your bustards, your ducks, and your widgeons;
But of all the birds in the air,
Here's a health to the Three Jolly Pigeons.
Toroddle, toroddle, toroll.