The Kerry Recruit lyrics

At the age of nineteen, I was digging the land

With me brogues on me feet and me spade in me hand

Well says I to meself, 'What a pity to see

Such a fine Kerry couldn't turf in Tralee.'

With your Kerry-I-Ah, fa lal deral lay

Kerry-I-Ah, fa lal deral lay

So I buttered me brogues and shook hands with me spade

Dashed off to the fair like a gallant young blade

The sergeant come up says 'Will you enlist?'

'Sure, sergeant,' says I, 'Stick the bob in me fist'

Then up comes the captain, and a man of great fame

Straightways he asks me my country and name;

Well, I told you before and tell him again

That me father and mother were two Kerrymen

Now the first thing they gave me, they called it a gun

And under the trigger I nesstled me thumb

The gun it spite fire, and vomited smoke

It gave a great leap and me shoulder near broke

Now the next place they took me was down to the sea

On board a great warship, bound for the Crimee

Three sticks in the middle, all hung with great sheet

Sure she walked on the water without any feet

We reached Balaclava all safe and all sound

And wet tired and weary we lay on the ground

Next morning at daybreak a bugler did call

And served us a breakfast of powder and ball

Now we fought them at Alma like wives and her man

But the Rooshians they foiled us along the Redan

While scaling a rampart meself lost an eye

And a great Russian bullet ran away with me thigh

Then the surgeon comes up and he soon stops the blood

And he gave me an elligant leg made of wood;

And they gave me a pension of tenpence a day

Contented on shiela I labour half-pay

Now that was the story that my grandfather told

As he sat by the fire all withered and old

'Remember,' said he,'that the Irish fight well

But the Russian artillery's hotter than Hell.'