another of Kevin Baker's great songs

Aunty Rooney's on a Sunday

Getting up on Sunday morning I can hear my parents talking
Saying how it's been a long time and it doesn't look like rain
And I know it's Aunty Rooney's where my feet will soon be walking
First to mass at Kogarah then to Banksia by train
And I think Mass will never end, O'Farrell's in the pulpit
And I wonder how my father felt to find his mother gone
But Aunty Rooney raised him when his mother went to Heaven
With the help of Aunty Mary and Uncle Pat and John

Soon the Mass is over and to Kogarah we will amble
Waiting on the platform looking down the track for trains
We spot it in the distance and soon on it we will scramble
My sister grabs the window-seat and off we go again
We get off at Banksia station with it's many beds of flowers
The Station-Master tells us he's won a prize or three
We find our way to Short Street but it seems to take us hours
As we watch out for the wooden house with it's Frangipani tree

Chorus -
And they're formerly of Redfern and late of County Galway
They tend the Celtic home-fires with a kind of loving hand
With each new generation they extend the celebration
And keep the green of Ireland growing in this golden land

Aunty Rooney tends the oven; Aunty Mary sets the places
They take their turns in scolding John who hit the grog last night
Uncle Pat returns the book he reads to one of his book-cases
And greetings break upon us as we step into the light
And after we've had our dinner comes the time that's most exciting
All the chairs go in a circle; Uncle Kev is asked to sing
He gives us Kevin Barry then my father's up reciting
Today I'll play the mouth organ my mother let me bring

Chorus

Well everyone did something with sometimes some harmonising
Though Colleen blushed and giggled and her sister wasn't keen
"No politics" calls Mary but just hear the voices rising
John has started something with "The Wearing of the Green"
So it's "Children to the backyard. Go! Come on now, use your nouses"
We'd rather stay inside but still the yard is parent-free
We roll and run for hours until Aunty Rooney rouses
"Now who has knocked that branch down from my frangipani tree?"

Chorus

Soon five-o'clock comes round and now the winter sun's declining
Grown-ups are startled by the time start straining to get home
John says: "Why not stop for tea?" but mum says she's got ironing
And things to do before her tribe is fit next week to roam
And home in bed before I sleep I catch my memories to me
And all those lovely moments get entangled in my dreams
And I hope I never get too old to go to Aunty Rooney's
To eat and laugh and sing with friends and raise the old roof-beams

chorus

Recording by Penny Davies and Roger Ilott.