This song was written by Jimmy Crowley a native Cork man.

1. I'll tell you a story that happened to me.
One day as I went down to Youghal by the sea,
The sun it was bright and the day it was warm.
Says I, "A quiet pint wouldn't do me no harm."

I went in and called for a bottle of stout.
Says the barman, "I'm sorry. The beer is sold out.
Try whiskey or paddy, ten years in the wood."
Say's I, "I'll try cider. I hear that it's good."

CHORUS: Oh never, oh never, oh never again,
If I live to a hundred or a hundred and ten!
I fell to the ground and I couldn't get up,
After drinking a quart of that Johnny-jump-up.

2. After leaving the third I went to the yard,
Where I bumped into Brophy, the big civic guard.
"Come here to me, boy. Don't you know I'm the law?"
I upped with my fist and shattered his jaw.

He fell to the ground with his knees doubled up,
But it wasn't I hit him. 'Twas Johnny-jump-up.
The next thing I met in Youghal by the sea
Was a cripple on crutches and says he to me,

"I'm afraid of me life I'll be hit by a car.
Won't you help me across to the Railway Men's Bar?"
After drinking a quart of that cider so sweet,
He throws down his crutches and danced in the street. CHORUS

3. I went up the Lee Road a friend for to see,
And they call it the Mad House in Cork by the Lee.
But when I got there, the truth I do tell,
They had the poor bugger locked up in a cell.

Said the guard, testing him, "Say these words if you can:
'Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran.'"
"Tell them I'm not crazy; tell them I'm not mad.
It was only a sup of that cider I had." CHORUS

4. A man died in the Union by the name of McNabb.
They washed him and laid outside on the slab,
And after O'Connor his measurements did take,
His wife took him home for a bloody fine wake.

About twelve o'clock and the beer it was high,
When the corpse he sits up and says with a sigh:
"I can't go to heaven. They won't let me up
Till I bring them a quart of this Johnny-jump-up." CHORUS


The chords I use are A minor, G, and you can also put in an E minor.
Just practice the sequence by doing the chorus as the tune is the same all the way through.