In a recent essay, I commented on the Irish propensity for attempting to find humor in every untoward situation, including death. In the case of the demise of a loved one, there is a bawdy Irish song whose lyrics go like this:

“Look at the coffin, with its bloody gold handles,
Isn’t it grand, boys, to be bloody well dead?
Let’s not have a sniffle, let’s have a bloody good cry,
The longer you live, the sooner you’ll bloody well die.”

Subsequent verses after the coffin “with its bloody gold handles,” contend that the mourners are hypocrites, that the flowers have lost their petals, the widow is milking the audience for more tears, and, in one version, the young male choir is referred to as bloody young faggots. The word “bloody” appears often in the speech patterns of England and Ireland. It is not an oath or a vulgarity, but rather it is used solely as an intensifier. My father, for example, referred to the tappets in his Studebaker automobile as “those bloody tappets sounding off again.” And in the final analysis, who can take quarrel with the thought that “the longer you live, the sooner you’ll bloody well die”? That seems to me to be more or less a given. The point in this whole situation is that in unfortunate instances in our lives, the Irish seem to have a penchant for looking for some humor to leaven the sadness. All things considered, I think it is a better solution than hand-wringing and weeping.
Another example comes to mind from the writing of the Irish author, James Joyce. One of his books has to do with the wake held for Tim Finnegan, an Irish laborer. According to the story, “Finnegan fell off a ladder and broke his skull.” Irish custom requires that the corpse be laid out on a bed in the living room and covered by a sheet or blanket. In Finnegan’s case, his corpse was laid out with “a bottle of porter (beer) at his head and gallons of whiskey (Bushmill’s best) at his feet.” As the wake progressed, Mrs. Finnegan served tea and cake to the guests, but soon the mourners began to drink the whiskey. Drinking Irish whiskey commonly results in disagreements of one kind or another. In one such encounter, a man threw his drink at another mourner who was standing near the corpse, which was proclaimed as the “nicest corpse I ever did see.” As the whiskey spilled over Tim Finnegan, he began to rise from the dead. He then said, “What the hell. Do you think I’m dead?”
James Joyce takes several hundred pages to describe Finnegan’s Wake. The Irish have also memorialized it in a bawdy song called, “Tim Finnegan’s Wake.” If you ever hear that song, I am sure that you will be inspired. As far as can be determined, Tim Finnegan went on to lead a lengthy life after his resurrection. James Joyce is a favorite of Irish actors who quote frequently from his plays. If James Joyce said that Finnegan rose from the dead, that’s good enough for me. I believe in the restorative powers of Bushmill’s Irish whiskey, just as the mourners did.
Irish people mourn the same as everyone else does. When a loss occurs such as a death, Irish people are mournful. It is not as though the Irish are without feelings, but it is that from their long history of oppression by the English, the Irish tend to look for any humor they can salvage from every dire situation.
For several years I have intended to write on the sentiments expressed in the song, “Isn’t it Grand Boys.” I neglected to do so because the subject had to do with death. But when push comes to shove, who can debate that “the longer you live, the sooner you’ll bloody well die”? It seems to me that even in the most mournful of circumstances, a snicker or two would not hurt. This of course would follow the advice of “Let’s not have a sniffle, let’s have a bloody good cry.” Once the crying is over, perhaps balance is restored and there is an opportunity for a little bit of humor. Humor has served the Irish and the rest of humanity well for hundreds of years. I hope that will be the case for the next millennium or so.
Even the laid back Cockneys have gotten into the spirit of the bawdy song discussed here today. There is a music hall Cockney song performed by Irish singers which holds, “They are moving father’s grave to build a sewer.” The early verses say, “They’re moving his remains to make room for nine inch drains.” But by the end of the piece, the father has his revenge.
The last verse says,

“And won’t those city toffs begin to rave!
But it’s no more than they deserve,
‘cause they had the bleedin’ nerve
To muck about a British workman’s grave.”

So you see, this essayist is happy to report that the Cockney Brits and the Irish agree on something, even if it is the subject of death.
And so in the Irish tradition, this old essayist has offered you three songs to carry you over your moments of sorrow. If “Isn’t it Grand Boys,” “Tim Finnegan’s Wake” and “They’re Moving Father’s Grave to Build a Sewer” fails to move you, it may be a hopeless case. But I suspect those songs may leave you with a nickels worth of laughter, which is well.
E. E. CARR
March 8, 2007
Essay 239
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Kevin’s commentary: Well to me, Tim Finnegan’s Wake is the best one of the three. Lots and lots of music tonight! I’m publishing this on the same day as this essay which has three more for ya. If you like these, just find a Clancy Brothers album and let the whole thing play through — they rarely make bad music.