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Galway Races

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As I went down to Galway Town to seek for recreation
             Em                  C                   D7                  G        

On the seventeenth of August me mind being elevated
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There were passengers assembled with their tickets at the station
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And me eyes began to dazzle and they off to see the races

              Am                G               Am                        
To me wack fol me doo, fol de ditheree idle day

There were passengers from Limerick and passengers from Nenagh
And passengers from Dublin and sportsmen from Tipperary

There were passengers from Kerry and all quarters of the nation

And our member Mr Hasset for to join the Galway Blazers

There were multitudes from Aran and members from New Quay shore

The boys of Connemara and the Clare unmarried maidens
There were people from Cork City who were loyal, true and faithful
Who brought home the Fenian prisoners from dying in foreign nations

And its there you’ll see confectioners with sugar sticks and candies

The lozenges and oranges, the lemonade and raisons

The gingerbread and spices to accommodate the ladies

And a big crubeen for thrupence to be picking while you’re able.

And it's there you'll see the pipers and the fiddlers competing

And the nimble footed dancers and they tripping on the daisies

There were others crying ‘cigars and lights and bills of all the races

With the colours of the jockeys, and the prize and horses’ ages.

Its there you’ll see the gamblers, the thimbles and the garters
And the sporting wheel of fortune with the four and twenty quarters
And there's others without scruple pelting wattles at poor Maggie
And her father well contented and he gazing at his daughter

And it's there you'll see the jockeys and they mounted on so stately
The pink, the blue, the orange, and green the colours of our nation
The time it came for starting all the horses seemed impatient
I thought they hardly touched the ground the speed was so amazing!

There was half a million people there of all denominations
The Catholic, the Protestant, the Jew, the Presbyterian

Yet there was no animosity no matter what persuasion
But failte hospitality inducing fresh acquaintance.

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'crubeen' is a pig's foot.