'Rocky Road to Dublin'

words and music traditional
In the merry month of May, From my home I started,
Left the girls of Tuam, Nearly broken hearted,
Saluted father dear, Kissed my darlin' mother,
Drank a pint of beer, My grief and tears to smother,
Then off to reap the corn, And leave where I was born,
I cut a stout blackthorn, To banish ghost and goblin,
In a brand new pair of brogues, I rattled o'er the bogs,
And frightened all the dogs,On the rocky road to Dublin.
One, two, three, four five,
Hunt the hare and turn her
Down the rocky road
And all the ways to Dublin,
Whack-fol-lol-de-ra.
In Mullingar that night, I rested limbs so weary,
Started by daylight, Next mornin' light and airy,
Took a drop of the pure, To keep my heart from sinkin',
That's an Irishman's cure, Whene'er he's on for drinking.
To see the lasses smile, Laughing all the while,
At my curious style, 'Twould set your heart a-bubblin'.
They ax'd if I was hired, The wages I required,
Till I was almost tired, Of the rocky road to Dublin.
In Dublin next arrived, I thought it such a pity,
To be so soon deprived, A view of that fine city.
Then I took a stroll, All among the quality,
My bundle it was stole, In a neat locality;
Something crossed my mind, Then I looked behind;
No bundle could I find, Upon my stick a wobblin'.
Enquirin' for the rogue, They said my Connacht brogue,
Wasn't much in vogue, On the rocky road to Dublin.
From there I got away, My spirits never failin'
Landed on the quay As the ship was sailin';
Captain at me roared, Said that no room had he,
When I jumped aboard, A cabin found for Paddy,
Down among the pigs I played some funny rigs,
Danced some hearty jigs, The water round me bubblin',
When off Holyhead, I wished myself was dead,
Or better far instead, On the rocky road to Dublin.
The boys of Liverpool, When we safely landed,
Called myself a fool; I could no longer stand it;
Blood began to boil, Temper I was losin',
Poor ould Erin's isle They began abusin',
"Hurrah my soul," sez I, My shillelagh I let fly;
Some Galway boys were by, Saw I was a hobble in,
Then with a loud hurray, They joined in the affray.
We quickly cleared the way, For the rocky road to Dublin.
KEY Dm
verse:
Dm C
Dm C
Dm C
Dm C
Dm F Dm F
Dm F Dm
Dm F Dm F
Dm C
chorus: C Dm
Dm
Dm
C
Dm
Background: Written in 19th century

My letter to our Fruitways marketing from my Fruiways farming

I have this cursor blink mockingly back at me taunting my current inability to think of a life story that will be worth sharing with strangers yet simultaneously not bare my innocent soul to the scrupulous scepticism I imagine exists in the dubious minds of any healthy adult. Some abstract phenomenon that intrigues the living daylights out of my waking moments, one that stirs the imagination to transcend the confining status quo of my neurological processing time would have to foot the bill…

The thing that tantalizes my pome nourished neurons most is; star dust. That is of course what all planetary matter ultimately consists of; including any inhabiting life forms thereof (unfortunately this excludes Bieber fans). To think that we eek out our living by nurturing pome varieties that use law abiding photons from our well behaved star to absorb delicious nutrients, chemicals which themselves would only have existed if the collapsing nebula that condensed to form out solar system did so at a very specific rate.

Gun toting bear imbibing metallurgists will tell you what heating and cooling rate is required for each element to form respectable citizens of their chemical societies. But, now, when one consider the number of benign elements required for the music loving life forms we see on this cosy planet – one would have to pause the prated Avengers DVD you’re watching to eloquently gasp at the most remarkable solar creation relative to the abundance of this element in the rest of the universe; celebrity elements like Phosphorous and Calcium, to name a few, the caffeine abused mind is indeed cajoled to inflate it’s arbitrary awareness just a tad.

The specific photons our deciduous fruit trees absorbed this summer have been about 10 to 30 thousand years in the making within our attention mongering Sun, when these naïve little photons began their own one way ticket that sent them hurtling suicidally at  300 000 km per second to bombard our beautiful green leaves with pleasant light.

Now we enjoy the sublime elements our packaged fruit are comprised of, chemicals that have been recycled not only on this planet’s marvellous eco system, but also been recycled through the birth and deaths of a plethora of swirling galaxies, traveling in their own choreographed heavenly dance sequences.

Robert Shapiro, author of Origins - A Sceptic’s Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, wrote:

The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at all. If we were to wait, we would truly be waiting for a miracle.³

There are many, many probability miracles involved in the formation of absurd life on earth; to name but a few; a planets habitable distance from its star, the size of the planet (heavy enough to retain its atmosphere), the axis of the planet, the revolution around its star, the stability of its star, the temperature relationship of planet to star allowing water to exist, the existence of metals and minerals etc. etc. All these require very conservative moderate balances so precise their combination increase the probability of chance to ludicrous values. And, we’ve really only touched planetary conditions not to mention the stellar requirements, like the existence of Jupiter and Saturn in our solar system, just the most effective asteroid, meteor barrier. Their immense gravitational pulls able to absorb enough to make the inner circle of planets relatively free of cataclysmic impacts…

Ronald Rolheiser says; “Looking at all of this, the chance coincidence of so many trillion possibilities that had to be exactly right for a universe and life to emerge, even Stephen Hawking admits, "there are theological implications" “

The impolite big bang itself is subject to the same marvellous miracle of moderations; had its nuclear force been too week, the resultant vulgar explosion would have only created the lighter and happier elements on the periodic table, none of the heavy, sad minerals we and our deciduous fruit trees require to sustain life. Had it been larger (roughly one part in a hundred thousand million parts larger) the expansion rate would have been too great to allow cooler planets to form. That’s not to mention the perfect symmetry of particles we find in the universe which allows for a rather stable existence – none of this proton annihilating anti protons that would ruins anyone’s glass of apple juice.

© Henry Tribe 2011

Perfectly summed up by David in Psalm  8 : 3 -4 ³ When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars,  which you have set in place, ⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,  human beings that you care for them.

Rom 8: 14

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

1 Cor 12 : 3

Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.