Click here for a YouTube recording by Alistair Russell, along with these lyrics:

THE FUNERAL

Last night I got an invitation to a funeral
But to me disappointment well the fellow didn't die
Of course he told the mourners he was sorry for disappointing them
And after the apologies, we let the thing go by.
Then after the apologies he took us out and treated us
And called a pint of porter for a company of ten
But when somebody asked him whose money he was squanderin'
That fellow got his eyebrows put in mourning there and then.

Now, the owner of the beer shop he saw that we were rioting
He said he would evict us, but to go we all refused;
And he called a bunch o' loafers who were standing in the corner
And for more than twenty minutes we were terribly abused
Then out of the beershop, into the streets we staggered
Where a bunch of ragamuffins started pelting us with mud
And we asked them for to chuck it and they said that they were doin' so
Then they battered us severely and they left us where we stood

Now the next that we met it was an army of Salvationers
They rifled all our pockets till we begged that we'd be saved
And Little Mick McGinty got escorted to the station house
For asking a policeman if his appetite was shaved.
Then to pay McGinty's fine, every man took off his undershirt
Off to the pawnshop we drove the bloody lot.
And we told them the man we only wanted ten and sixpence on them.
"There's enough on them already" was the answer that we got

Then we got the ten and sixpence was the price to free McGinty.
But the Devil damn the whisky shop we met upon the way.
Of course, we couldn't pass it without taking some refreshment,
Till we squandered every penny of the fine we had to pay
Then the whisky bein' in us, and all the sense bein' out of us,
Its for a bit of rioting every one of us did repair.
And we battered one another till we weren't worth three ha'pence
And ye couldn't see the carpets on the floor for skin and hair.

Then we bought a concertina for to keep up the hilarity,
But none of us could play it, though we tried our best and worst;
And it made an awful noise, if that was any benefit,
And we handled it so gently that the bellows it did burst.
Then we bought a boiled potato for to mend the concertina,
And someone hit Maloney with the carcase of a cat
And he buckled up his eyebrows and began to read the riot act,
And said "I'll put two headbutts on the bugger who did that."

Then I hit McCusker and McCusker hit some other man
And every man hit any man to whom he had a spite.
And Johnny MacNamara who was sittin' sayin' nothin'
Got a kick that broke his jaw for not indulgin' in the fight.
Then we fought like Turks till the police the separated us
Drove us off to prison, broken noses and black eyes
I got forty days in prison and to me it was a lesson:
Never more to go to funerals until the people die.