A Ballad Of Clifton Hill Poem by Francis Duggan

Only lived for seven months there but I do remember still
My happy days in Fitzroy towards the left of Clifton Hill
And the good fun at the weekends for my memory serves me well
And the lovely girls I danced with at the Normandy Hotel.

There was Kate from Connemara, there was Joan from County Clare,
There was Tess from Ballybunion with the brown and curling hair,
There was Annie from Mildura and Bella from Bedingo
And the beauty from Lakes Entrance the delightful Mary Jo.

Many young men out from Ireland from Kerry to County Down
They had come to make their fortune in Victoria's Melbourne Town
Times were bad in poor old Ireland and not much work over here
Still for only twenty dollars one can get blind drunk on beer.

The Great McCarthy in his forties quite familiar to the place
In the Clifton Hill Hotel and Normandy his is a well known face
And the Kerry man old Twiggy dark haired streaked with strands of gray
Boasting of Kerry footballers heroes of a by gone day.

Danny Twohig from north west Cork from the hills of Ballinagree
He's inspired the Sinn Fein footballers to many a victory
And his once quick feet grown slower with the passages of time
Still on squash court he outplay men half of his age and in their prime.

And the man from west of Ireland the ebullient Bomber brown
He is quite a well known figure in this part of Melbourne Town
He has drank in Clifton Hill pubs for years and years and years
He has drunk gallons of liquor and kegs and kegs of beer.

And the Irish and the Aussies dance around the lounge room floor
As the band played on till midnight to another loud encore
Singing songs of emigration Botany Bay and Danny Boy,
Galway Bay, Mountains of Mourne and the Fields of Athenry

Only lived for seven months there but I do remember still
My happy days in Fitzroy towards the left of Clifton Hill
And the good fun at the weekends for my memory serves me well
And the lovely girls I danced with at the Normandy Hotel.