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  • The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem

    The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem

    The Juice of the Barley • In Person at Carnegie Hall

    Featuring artist: Liam Clancy
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The Juice of the Barley lyrics

In the sweet county Lim'rick, one cold winter's night
All the turf fires were burning when I first saw the light;
And a drunken old midwife went tipsy with joy
As she danced round the floor with her slip of a boy
 
Singing, "Bainne na mbó is an gamhna
And the juice of the barley for me"
 
Then when I was a young lad of six years or so
With me book and my pencil to school I did go
To a dirty old school house without any door
Where lay the school master blind drunk on the floor
 
Singing, "Bainne na mbó is an gamhna
And the juice of the barley for me"
 
At the learning I wasn't such a genius I'm thinking
But I soon bet the master entirely at drinking
Not a wake or a wedding for five miles around
But meself in the corner was sure to be found
 
Singing, "Bainne na mbó is an gamhna
And the juice of the barley for me"
 
Then one Sunday the priest read me out from the altar
Saying, "You'll end your days with your neck in a halter;
And you'll dance a fine jig betwixt heaven and hell"
And his words they did haunt me the truth for to tell
 
Singing, "Bainne na mbó is an gamhna
And the juice of the barley for me"
 
So the very next morn as the dawn it did break
I went down to the priest house the pledge for to take
And in there in the room sat the priests in a bunch
Round a big roaring fire drinking tumblers of punch
 
Singing, "Bainne na mbó is an gamhna
And the juice of the barley for me"
 
Well, from that day to this, I have wandered alone
I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none
With the sky for me roof and the earth for me floor
And I'll dance out my days drinking whiskey galore
 
Singing, "Bainne na mbó is an gamhna
And the juice of the barley for me"
 

 

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Idioms from "The Juice of the ..."
1.Blind drunk
2.Jack of all trades
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