We've pretty much all worn more names than one in our time - aye, and more faces than one two. And some of us still do. Which can be a Bad Thing(tm), or a Good Thing(tm), or just part of living the lives we live. Aye, and there's covers on books that bear a name not Tatter Jack, and that name is mine too - but this isn't marketing, so I'll no' be tellin' ye it here, or the titles either. But there's a name on another book cover I'll likely never publish, an' a title ( An Bóthar Fada - In éagmais Fidle), and' it hae things in it I'd not normally set on sight to any save a few (blush). But I was thinkin' o' someone whose voice has honoured my poor scribbles in the past recently (yes Lord u/Issoladach, I confess it was you), and this came to mind. So I thought I'd set it here.

For those with better Gaeilge than I, which is most anyone (blush), what follows likely is wrong anyway. But if it has interest, Gardai is generally pronounced ‘gar-dee’, and is the plural form of ‘Garda’. ‘An Garda Síochána’ (na hÉireann) are the Irish Police, or ‘the polis’ in vernacular. It translates as ‘The Guardians of the Peace (of Ireland). And Erin is the Anglicised spelling often found for Éireann – Ireland. But I have tae say there’s some mixed geography in this, for the Garry-boys are really Limerick and not Dublin, or they were one. And here’s a word or two I offered for DANNY THE DANCER (a different piece), for DANNY’s not far from the tune of the Garryowen, and this piece talks of the Garry-bhoys:

The Garryowen is an old Irish quickstep going back to the 1680s. In time it became the official Gallop of the Seventh Cavalry under Custer, and to this day it’s the Official Tune of the First Cavalry. The name’s not quite what it may seem. It’s a compound of ‘garrai’ – the Irish for ‘garden’, and eoian – the Irish form of John, and pronounced O-in or Oh-en. In fact, you’ll find King John’s Gardens at the bottom of the hill in Limerick town. And there’s many a madness the young folk used to get up to there. The local lads would tear the knockers from doors, and wring the necks of geese. Soon the fame of the ‘Garryowen boys’ spread far and wide.

But in time the ‘Garry-bhoys’ (for in Scotland and Ireland both, ‘bhoy’ is closer to a young tough or thug than it is the simpler ‘boy’) got to more than a broken door knocker or three, and mayhap there’s more dead than a goose or so to their name. For Limerick was once (and still may be for all my knowing) called Switch-City, for the knives even its children carried of a Saturday night. But what city there is here (Sraid Uí Chonaill is O’Connell Street, and Stephen’s Green is Faiche Stiabhna, the Georgian Square city centre public park) is Dublin. And the uilleann are the Irish bag-pipes all Ireland over, but you say it as ɪlən, or ‘i’ (as in ‘sit’) l (as in ‘love’) a (as in ‘ago’) n – so ‘ilan’. And, for those who may not know,  the Liffy is a river that runs through Dublin, and Guiness (the real kind, and not the kind they let the English have) is supposed to be made with the pure Liffy water. So ‘the Liffy’ is the black stuff, and it’s no’ Oil that means :-).

Oh – and a half-crown? That was once two shillings and sixpence in English money. And the Irish often took the English coin – for there’s little else they thought na Sasanaigh had worth having, unless it was their heart’s blood running in the street for some. And the rights of that, or the wrongs either, is not mine to say.

WALKIN’ HOME

So I took me out a walkin’

In a dream I had last night

Tae a place I’ve never been me

Though I sometimes wish I might

An’ my dreamin’ feet, they took me

Cork an’ Kerry, an’ Kildare,

But the Erin that they found me

Made me wish I wasn’t there

An’ the Gardai an’ the Garry-bhoys,

They’s tearin’ up the town

An’ there’s Mary on the corner

An’ she’s yours for half-a-crown

It’s none the land I wish I knew

The Green Isle’s lost away

An’ there’s no’ a pipe or fiddle song

Frae here tae Judgin' Day

​

So I set again tae walkin’

Walked the dream right out my feet

An’ it’s here it was I found me

On the Sraid Uí Chonaill beat

An’ I wrapped dream Dublin round me

While I washed the Liffy down

An’ I reached for Erin in me

But the Liffy’s all I found

An’ the Gardai an’ the Garry-bhoys,

They’s tearin’ up the town

An’ there’s Mary on the corner

An’ she’s yours for half-a-crown

It’s none the land I wish I knew

The Green Isle’s lost away

An’ there’s no’ a pipe or fiddle song

Frae here tae Judgin' Day

Then I felt the mornin’ callin’

An’ I woke in Stephen’s Green

On a cold and ragged corner

But I knew I wasn’t seen

For the people hurried by me

An’ there’s none as saw me lie

While the Green Isle’s tears were cryin’,

Fallin’ down frae Erin’s sky

An’ the Gardai an’ the Garry-bhoys

They all can kiss my arse

An’ I’ll find my own fair Mary

The next corner that I pass

Then I’ll keep my dream feet walkin’

‘Till I find my Erin land

An’ the one I’ve got I’ll give you

With the back of my own hand

For somewhere there’s a wind blow

An’ the wind has uilleann song

An’ somewhere there’s a fiddle

An’ that fiddle’s playin’ strong

I can hear an old tin whistle

I can hear a dancin’ shoe

But the Gardai an’ the Garry-bhoys

They’s never heard the tune

The Gardai an’ the Garry-bhoys,

Was tearin’ up the town...