"Top of the Cork Road"
(An T'Athair � Floinn, Bonny Green Garters, Cork Road, Father O'Flynn, Mullac Botair Corcaig, Rollicking Irishman, Top Of Cork Road, To Drink With the Devil, Trample Our Enemies, Yorkshire Lasses.)
Double Jig, Dmaj, AABB.
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Playing or Personal Notes:
No personal notes.
History
From FC:
Irish, American;
Double Jig.
D Major (most versions): C Major (Howe, Joyce).
Standard tuning.
AABB.
Bayard (1981) says that despite the Irish-ness of its title, English versions in print predate Irish ones. He reports that Moffat found no earlier Irish versions that 1798, while Kidson found English versions (as "The Yorkshire Lasses") from 1789 and 1781. The melody serves as the vehicle for Alfred Percival Graves’ song “Father O’Flynn,” published in 1874. New York researcher, musician and writer Don Meade says: “The title track of Tommy Peoples’ Shanachie LP The High Part of the Road is a back translation into English of an Irish translation of “The Top of the Road” (Ard an Bothar), which Breandan Breathnach in Ceol Rince na hEireann, vol. 1 mistakenly applied to the preceding jig in Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, a two-part version of ‘The Blooming Meadows.’”
From the Session Tunes (apparently the song "Father O\'Flynn" is set to the tune of Top of Cork Road);
Lyrics
Father O\'Flynn Of priests we can offer a charmin' variety, Far renown'd for learnin' and piety; Still, I'd advance ye widout impropriety, Father O'Flynn as the flow'r of them all. cho: Here's a health to you, Father O'Flynn, Slainte and slainte and slainte agin; Pow'rfulest preacher, and tenderest teacher, And kindliest creature in ould Donegal. Don't talk of your Provost and Fellows of Trinity, Famous forever at Greek and Latinity, Dad and the divils and all at Divinity Father O'Flynn 'd make hares of them all! Come, I venture to give ye my word, Never the likes of his logic was heard, Down from mythology into thayology, Truth! and conchology if he'd the call. Och Father O'Flynn, you've a wonderful way wid you, All ould sinners are wishful to pray wid you, All the young childer are wild for to play wid you, You've such a way wid you, Father avick. Still for all you've so gentle a soul, Gad, you've your flock in the grandest control, Checking the crazy ones, coaxin' onaisy ones, Lifting the lazy ones on wid the stick. And tho quite avoidin' all foolish frivolity; Still at all seasons of innocent jollity, Where was the playboy could claim an equality, At comicality, Father, wid you? Once the Bishop looked grave at your jest, Till this remark set him off wid the rest: "Is it lave gaiety all to the laity? Cannot the clergy be Irishmen, too?"
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