GULLIBLE’S TRAVELS (Paul O Brien)

I couldn’t help myself, after seeing a satellite photograph with the scar through Fairview Park plain to be seen I had to get the pen and paper out.

Come all you lads and lassies now and listen to my plight

When I got lost like returning from the pub one Monday night

How I left the “Tavern” in a mood so bright and gay

And ended up a frightened wreck seven miles away

It all began six months ago to the sound of JCBs

They were clearing all the rubbish and tearing up the trees

Pretending to be working for the crew from RTE

Digging the new tunnel from the suburbs to the sea

That night I left the Tavern, I was gasping for some air

So I though I’d take a walk as far as Alfie Byrne’s chair

‘Tis there that I could rest me feet and contemplate me soul

But I ended up getting lost down this great big hole

I couldn’t figure out just how I’d come into this place

In the cold and dark I couldn’t see me hand before me face

I got out me rosary beads, said a decade double quick

The smell of rats and planners was making me feel sick

Surrounded by the darkness sure I thought I was in hell

I thought I’d fallen into a horizontal well

I was greeted by a corpo-man and got an awful fright

He told me “Wait till morning son, and then walk on towards the light”

I struggled in the pitch black for all of that long night

And finally emerged just at the dawn’s first glowing light

Me nerves were all in shatters and me mind was at a loss

I though that I’d gone south-side and was stuck in Harold’s Cross

I pulled myself together and my thirst I thought I’d douse

If only I could find myself an early-morning house

I recognized a building that was once “The Rendezvous”

But the place it didn’t open up ‘till after half past two

I finally got my bearings and I headed for the town

Passing down by Whitehall Church and the Holy Ground

Down by Joseph’s for the Blind where we used to dance

And tried to grope the scrubbers if they gave us half a chance

I rested at All Hallows gate it’s there I had a pee

Careful that the residents me privates couldn’t see

Down at the fence to Tolka Park I stopped to take a peek

Sure I went to see the Rovers play, every other week

Then along the Richmond Road where the Dandelion once was

When hippies were still something new and fighting for a cause

I passed by Maher’s the singing pub where “Sonny” stole the show

Pretending he was window cleaning down by Tolka Row

I rambled on and soon enough Fairview was in sight

The traffic it was coming from the left and from the right

I had to take the footbridge while commution raged below

Just like Indiana Jones in the temple, don’t you know?

Arriving at the part I was so fond of as a child

The bandstand and the swings where we played and we run wild

It was just a gaping chasm where shortly trucks would go

Or at least that was the master plan, but the ceiling far too low

I rambled up the hill across the ploughed-up football fields

Where we risked our lives on trolleys with ball-bearing wheels

Or on the chassis of a pram, fast as you ever could

And crossed the metal bridge that I remember once was wood

Outside the tunnel entrance was a gang of lads I know

With chamois and with buckets, standing in a row

I asked them what the story was and Sykie said “Bejazes

We’re training to be squeegee-boys like in Los An-gel-ees”

“We’re going to wash the windows of all the vans and trucks

We’ll make them cough up plenty with threats and dirty looks”

I could see that Sykie meant it, by the wild look in his eyes

The fact he’d done a stretch inside, will come as no surprise

I arrived at last at base camp and called out for a pint

Oh! The Tavern is our mother-ship our beacon and our light

We’ll sit there on the balcony, watch truckers pay the toll

Rev-up their diesel engines and drive off down the hole

Come all of you East Wallers and listen to my plight

If you go to the Tavern on any weekday night

And if you want to ramble with the mot and have a lark

Be careful you don’t fall into that Hole in Fairview Park