Robin Williamson - Lough Foyle lyrics

Words RW, music trad Irish: Nancy´s Whiskey 1978

At age 14 they gave us training

To number off by threes and give salutes

To clean and fire the Lee and Enfield

To answer smartly sir and shine the boots

Me and all the other poor bastards

Glengarry bonnets on at bugle call

I never thought I looked good in khaki

It hurt the pride as well as it scratched the balls

I volunteered for the signals section

To work the radios was a skivers joy

and on manoeuvres I´d twist the orders

and put confusion on the soldier boys

To Northern Ireland for summer training

Near to Lough Foyle not far from Derry town

To get the feel of the regular army

and generally act the bloody clown

To eat melodious beans and gravy

To sleep on old grey blankets stiff with stains

and on the carsy in the morning

To squat in rows like cows with labor pains

Me and some lads broke out one evening

Climbed through the wire and down the lough beside

We spied some fishers in their long boats

Casting nets out on the silvery tide

They soon pulled shoreward and we got to talking

To row us over the water they´d agree

They hoist us dry shod in the boat beside them

And way across the watery waves went we

Cross to Greencastle in Southern Ireland

A street of cottages set end to end

A couple of churches and several boozers

Where we fell to drinking with our Irish friends

The best black porter, strong beer and whiskey

We had a bevy there as drunk as lords

and all skylarking and cutting capers

Till that old church clock it chimed for four

The fishers rowed us back over the water

and went to fish upon the morning rise

But we were drunk and devoid of caution

and we were halted climbing back through the wire

and me and the lads were all defaulted

and straight away upon fatigues were led

To double at our every duty

With our rifles held obove our heads

Bur my good luck was not all departed

I got infected in both the ears

Some kind of hole in the two of my ear drums

Till not a single order I could hear

I sadly smiled and looked downhearted

While they could curse and shout and rage

and that´s the way I would end a story

When I was 14 years of age