Here is a song with no plot.
I mean it. Most of the songs in the songbook are ABOUT something — a poor unfortunate dies, a rover swears off the drink, a lad gets transported to Australia for stealing a sheep. The Galway Races is not about anything. It is a man standing at the racecourse pointing at people. "Look at HIM. And look at HER. And look at that fella over there with the fiddle." That's the whole song. And it is one of the most joyful things you will ever bellow with a pint in your hand.
I love it for that. Sometimes you don't want a story. Sometimes you just want a crowd and a chorus.
A Bit of History
The Galway Races as a horse-racing meeting at Ballybrit goes back to the late 1860s, and the song clearly comes from somewhere in that world — a broadside ballad printed up and sold cheap, the kind of thing hawkers flogged at the racecourse itself. But here's the honest bit, and I'm always honest with you lot: nobody can hand you a name, a date, and a "written by" line that holds up. It's a traditional song. Author unknown. The way these things usually are.
What we DO know is that it lived on the page before it lived only in memory — it turns up in the broadside and ballad-collecting world of the nineteenth century, and it was still being sung the length of the country when the song collectors went around with their notebooks (and later their recording machines). So it's old. Genuinely old. But if anyone tells you it was "written in such-and-such a year by such-and-such a man," ask them to show you the proof. They usually can't. (Don't be smug about it though. Folk songs are slippery and that's part of the gas of them.)
The thing that makes it last isn't a clever origin story anyway. It's the FORM. It's a list-song. A roll-call. You stack up character after character — the gamblers, the fiddlers, the colleens, the lemonade sellers, the welcoming Galway crowd — and between each batch you all come crashing back in on that chorus. No plot to forget. You can teach it to a room in about ninety seconds, and that, I'd wager, is exactly why a hawker could sell it at a racecourse two centuries-ish ago and why it still fills a pub today.
Lyrics
As I rode down to Galway town To seek for recreation On the seventeenth of August Me mind being elevated There were multitudes assembled With their tickets at the station Me eyes began to dazzle And they goin' to see the races.
With me whack fol the do fol the diddley idle day.
There were passengers from Limerick And passengers from Nenagh The boys of Connemara And the Clare unmarried maidens There were people from Cork city Who were loyal, true and faithful Who brought home the Fenian prisoners From dying in foreign nations.
With me whack fol the do fol the diddley idle day.
It's there you'll see confectioners With sugar sticks and dainties The lozenges and oranges Lemonade and the raisins The gingerbread and spices To accommodate the ladies And a big crúbeen for thruppence To be picking while you're able.
With me whack fol the do fol the diddley idle day.
It's there you'll see the gamblers The thimbles and the garters And the sporting Wheel of Fortune With the four-and-twenty quarters There was others without scruple Pelting wattles at poor Maggie And her father well contented And he looking at his daughter.
With me whack fol the do fol the diddley idle day.
It's there you'll see the pipers And the fiddlers competing And the nimble-footed dancers And they tripping on the daisies There was others crying segars and lights And bills of all the races With the colour of the jockeys The prize and horses' ages.
With me whack fol the do fol the diddley idle day.
It's there you'll see the jockeys And they mounted on so stately The blue, the pink, the orange And the green, the mark of Erin The whip going at sixty And the fences flying over And the horses fairly leaping And the crowd a-loudly cheering.
With me whack fol the do fol the diddley idle day.
How to Sing It
Right. Practical bit.
This is a CHORUS song, which is your great mercy as a session leader, because the verses are a list and nobody remembers a list. You hold the verses. The room holds the chorus. "With me whack fol the do fol the diddley idle day" — that's the whole job for everyone who walked in cold, and they'll have it by the second time round.
Tempo: brisk. Not frantic, but it should canter. The whole feel is a racecourse, so it wants a bit of gallop in it. Lean on it. Stomp if there's a floor that allows it.
A few notes from doing this in real rooms. One — the place names ARE the fun. "Limerick," "Nenagh," "Connemara," "Clare," "Cork" — let people cheer their own county. Half the craic of this song is somebody from Limerick going "AYE" when their town comes up. Encourage it. Two — don't fret about getting every word of the verses exact. There are a dozen versions floating about, lines swap in and out, and that's grand. The song was never carved in stone. Three — that "crúbeen for thruppence" line gets a laugh every time once people work out it's a pig's foot. Let the laugh land.
And honestly? If the room is roaring and you fluff a verse, just go straight to the chorus early. Nobody minds. The chorus is the song.
For the words to print and hand around, I keep the clean copy over on the lyrics page. If you like a good list-song you'll also want The Wild Rover for the clap, and have a poke through the whole songbook while you're at it.
No plot. Just a crowd. Off you go.
Slán go fóill, BogLord2002
P.S. — Rattlin' the cat is no help at the races. Refuses to back anything. Sits on the form guide instead. Honestly his record might be better than mine.