The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #49223   Message #742463
Posted By: toadfrog
04-Jul-02 - 05:44 PM
Thread Name: Help: Garryowen
Subject: Garryowen
The "Garryowen" available on DT ("Let Bacchus' sons be not dismayed")looks like a parody of an Irish patriotic song from the mid-19th Century:

Oh Garryowen is gone to rack--
Her blood lies on the outlaw's track-- [?]
The night hangs cold, and black,
Above the shining river;
Yet voices live along her walls,
That ring out like old bugle calls,
Thro' lonesome streets and ruined halls
"Our native land forever!"
Then hip hurrah! for Garryowen,
For as stands the Treaty stone,
Our Irish hearts will bear alone,
For Garryowen na glora,

The broadside appears to come from the mid 19th Century. And the DT version (quickstep of the 7th Cavalry) looks a whole lot like a parody. In fact, it could hardly be anything else.

"Instead of spa, we'll drink brown ale,
And pay the reckoning on the nail,
No man for debt shall go to jail,
From Garryowen in glory!

Does anyone know any of the history of this? Garryowen, of course, is the old town of Limerick. Is it perhaps, the part of Limerick where Joseph of Arimathea is said to have landed? Was it named in honor of Saint Gereon?


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