On the Mainland

I was over on the Mainland

Doing me act in some old civic hall

It was the night before we stormed the hackney empire

My adrenaline got pumpin' when the crowd demanded more

I couldn't sleep a wink

So I turned on to the BBC World Service

Comin' at me from New Delhi

Or some other long lost Colonial shore

When a lovely English man came on the wireless

With a gorgeous, sweet dulcet Portland placed clipped tone

He announced that the winner

Of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature

Was a British poet

"Séamus Heaney from Londonderry", sez he

As cool as cool could be

So I roared out for tea and toasted muffins

And a pair of hard-boiled eggs to calm my nerves

You never claimed George Best nor Alex Higgins

Nor you never claimed Bellaghy's other boys

But that's the way things are upon the Mainland

Where the Quarehawks are still sucking

The wee small birds' eggs dry

I was over on the mainland

Doing me act in some old civic hall