Delaney’s Chicken

Delaney from the market bought a fowl a month ago
If he meets the man who sold it he will kill him with a blow
He said it was a chicken of a plump and tender breed
But of a more deceitful bird you'll never hear or read.
When they settled down to pluck it all their efforts were in vain
But hands were torn and blistered and their muscles had a strain
So dressed in all its feathers then they put it in the stew
If you want to make Delaney wild, shout "Cock-a-doodle-do.

That bird must have crowed when they built the tower of Babel
Was fed by Cain and Abel, and lived in Noah's stable
All the shots that were fired, on the field of Waterloo
Couldn't penetrate, or dislocate, that elongated, armour-plated,
Double-breasted, iron chested, Cock-a-doodle-do.

Delaney bought that chicken just to give us all a spread
On Sunday, when the guests arrived, he went clean off his head
In the yard were picks and shovels that were twisted up like tin
That he tried to carve the chicken with, but couldn't break the skin
We borrowed Daly's rammer, with which he rams the stones
And thought one gentle blow would break the tender chicken's bones
At the first blow it rebounded like an India-rubber ball
And knocked ten yards of coping off Mulhanny's garden wall.

Mick Dunn, the ex-dragoon, then tried to excavate the thing
But the sword he carved the Russians with bent like a yard of string
Tim Burke, the navvy miner, through the young bird showed daylight
By blowing up himself and it with a pound of dynamite
To scrape the walls of chicken wasn't very easy work
It puzzled us to find out which was chicken, which was Burke
I found a leg of bird, and with a friendly blacksmith's aid
A pair of everlasting heels upon my boots I've made.