Fish Was Not The Dish by Jack the Sailor


The Mudcat Forum	The Mudcat Resource Pages	The Mudcat Midi Page	The Digital Tradition Folk Song Server
Back to The Mudcat Songbook		Back to The Song Challenge Winners!
Anyone is welcome to perform these songs in public without royalties; however, if any of them are recorded or published for profit, the writers/composers expect the usual royalties.

St. Patrick's Day 2000 Special Song Challenge: Bob, Corned Beef and The Devil -- Dateline Boston, USA. Some Irish Catholics may have a beef with the church on St. Patrick's Day. This year, the holiday falls on a Friday in Lent, the period when Roman Catholics are encouraged to abstain from eating meat as an act of penance and a reminder of the sacrifices of Jesus. Many Catholic bishops, including Boston's and New York's, are giving dispensation to parishioners who want to partake of the traditional Irish-American meal of corned beef and cabbage. But some bishops are refusing to let their congregations off the hook, like Bishop Sean O'Malley of Fall River, Massachusetts, has not issued a dispensation. As a result, Catholics with a hankering for corned beef on March 17th may be heading to nearby Boston. But even without a dispensation, there is a possible out for those who don't want to ignore the rules but feel a craving for corned beef: They can travel to another diocese where the meal is deemed OK. "Corned beef and cabbage is a mainstay of our menu," says Jerry Burke, owner of Doyle's Cafe, an Irish pub in Boston's Jamaica Plains neighborhood, "And people are going to do it anyway." Mr. Burke expects to sell thousands of pounds of corned beef and cabbage this Friday. Also included in the no-no parishes are those in Rockville Centre, New York and Brooklyn, New York."

Fish Was Not The Dish by Jack the Sailor
(With apologies to Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh, music from the traditional Fáinne Géal an Lae /The Dawning of the Day)

Our bishop said on St Paddy's day, we could not eat corned beef
But that is rude, its our fav'rite food, this causes lots of grief
It's a friday but I can't eat fish upon St paddy's day
So grant me dispensation, this one thing I do pray

In Boston they are allowed to consume the Irish feast
They are allowed to join the crowd, They have a kinder priest
Oh bless their hearts, their cabbage farts will sound throughout the day
We love this food, both crude and rude. As our gas flutes we do play

I don't want to eat codfish I don't want to eat chard
But I want to do my duty, although it can be hard
I'll have to go down to Boston to celebrate this day
And when I go to the bathroom,don't get in my way

It can't be beat it is such a treat, This boiled creation is
And Guiness is so lovely, with its thick taste and fizz
The flies I shooed they weren't so good But what do you expect
When so many drunken Irishmen Their dinner they project

In Boston on St Paddy's Day, I ate corned beef and knew
If I had too much green beer, my lunch I'd surely spew
So all I drank was Guiness, and now I feel OK
And I know that fish was not the dish, to eat on St. Paddy's Day