SONG CHALLENGE WINNER!

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." 


For Paddy's Day by derrymacash
(To the polka "Maggie In the Wood" (as used by Christy Moore for the song Patrick Was A Gentleman)

Oh, Jaysus cried (as well he might) to see his grieving mother
Since we shoot the breeze of tragedies, I'll nominate another
Paddy's Day will fall they say within the Lenten season
When to eat a scrap of meat would be far worse than treason
If we could at least persuade the priest to grant a dispensation
We could cook a rare oul' feast to aid our celebration
But here's the rub, unless good grub is served with our libations
Our stomachs will not be right filled and, thus, inebriation!

Ah, c'mon Pat! Get out of that! I've got a useful notion
We'll make our way, for Paddy's Day, across th'Atlantic Ocean
In Boston Town, of famed renown, where all the Irish muster
It's there we'll land and make a stand like yer man, the General Custer
The bishop's word, as there declared, gives freedom to believers
To eat at will, to eat their fill, of any grub they favour
So Pat, a mhic, let's both be quick and buy ourselves a ticket
To stay and fast, I'd curse and blast and maybe couldn't stick it

So off we flew, from Killaloe, on a Boeing 747
On the flight we reached a height where we scraping heaven
Such parades as we saw made through the boulevards of Boston
I'd like to stash the sort of cash to pay in full the cost, and
Beer dyed green, it looked obscene, but tasted unaffected
Hairy bacon, for the taking, carefully selected
Irish stew, colcannon too, dulse and carragheen, sir
Singing songs the whole night long, The Wearing Of The Green, sir

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