A friend of An Spailpín Fánach ran in the marathon yesterday, and it seemed only meet to write a ballad in his honour. His time was four hours twenty-six, which has been extended in the text to four and a half, for reasons of metre - this is what you call poetic license. This can be sung to the tune of The Wild Colonial Boy, should anybody feel the need.
Deep inside the counting house
Among the piles of gold
There lived and worked an Irish boy
Whose story must be told
The gochi berry replaced dry sherry
As he counted out the dough
Then he went and ran the marathon
The hare of Timahoe
The runners lined up in a bunch
With no heed of the bitter chill
Six and twenty impe'ral miles
Stretched out between flat and hill
The starters gun began the run
The streamed up Westland Row
And the foremost in that gallant field
Was the hare of Timahoe
They passed O’Connell’s statue
And also the great Parnell’s
They tore up through the NCR
Past Mountjoy’s lonely cells
At Inchicore their feet got sore
Some hit their first plateau
But he drove on regardless
That hare of Timahoe
The pace picked up at Dolphin’s Barn
For reasons best unsaid
And the KCR and Dartry sweet
Saw the first contenders shed
His teeth he clenched, he never flinched
His arms went to and fro
Sure I’m only warming up
Said the hare of Timahoe
Stillorgan now after twenty miles
The home of the bourgeoisie
The lesser men, they fell to the earth
Like the price of property
The credit crunch has left a bunch
Of prices wan and low
I’ll come back and buy a place
Said the hare of Timahoe
The fanlit streets of Merrion Square
Were hosts to the finish line
The hare sped through the waiting throng
Four thirty was his time
He didn’t pause but set his jaws
As for porter he did go
Just a hundred yards to Toner’s! cried
The hare of Timahoe
Technorati Tags: people, Dublin, marathon, Hare of Timahoe
