the ballad of crettyard

 

(Portrait of a particularly characterful women's Gaelic football team hailing from the dulcet little town of Crettyard hidden in the emerald green heartland of Ireland on the border between counties Laois and Kilkenny, longtitude 52.8419 degrees north, latitude 7.1276 degrees west.)

There's a football team in Erin

Not known for grace or style

Whose ruthlessness and depravity

Is mixed with female guile

The gerruls of Crettyard

Are famed in song and story

Their football 'tis not hard

So much as it is gory

When a ref has lost his whistle

Or a linesman can't find his bawls

It's not so much a question

As a certainty who's involved

But the girls of Crettyard

Will always stay the course

With a dollop of sheer savagery

And a smidgen of brute force

The ladies of Ballsbridge

Came one day to play

Crettyard prowled onto the field

And the ladies ran away

And Athy came to face them

Who were rough enough themselves

But quickly fell to weeping

"Mammy is this hell?"

Then the glamour girls of Kerry

With skills beyond compare

Who limped home on broken ankles

Missing tufts of golden hair

Their roll of honour lives in infamy

On many a Gaelic pitch

There's Sheila Na Gigs Nic Kickinthebawls

There's Kathleen Og Mac Bitch

And sundry other heroes

With names too crude to call

Who live for Sunday football

And vote for Fianna Fail

They've been in many Championships

But they very rarely win

Because great big softy referees

Think fouling is a sin

And all across the midlands

When children are abed

'Tis not the bogie man they fear

But Crettyard they dread

Still all good things come to an end

Even a life of crime

And Crettyard will meet their maker

At game of life full tme

They'll troop up to the pearly gates

While Saint Peter says "No way!"

"Let them in ye twit," says Michael,

"Them's Crettyard GAA,"

And when the great Apocalypse

Rolls through all creation

And demons swarm about the walls

To threaten heaven's station

God will say to Gabriel

With the battle going hard:

"It looks like the divil's winning.

Better send in Crettyard."