The Irishman and The Lady

by WILLIAM MAGINN (1794-1842)

THERE was a lady lived at Leith,
A lady very stylish, man;
And yet, in spite of all her teeth,
She fell in love with an Irishman–
A nasty, ugly Irishman,
A wild, tremendous Irishman,
A tearing, swearing, thumping, bumping,
ranting, roaring Irishman.

His face was no ways beautiful,
For with small-pox ’t was scarr’d across;
And the shoulders of the ugly dog
Were almost double a yard across.
Oh, the lump of an Irishman,
The whiskey-devouring Irishman,
The great he-rogue with his wonderful brogue–
the fighting, rioting Irishman.

One of his eyes was bottle-green,
And the other eye was out, my dear;
And the calves of his wicked-looking legs
Were more than two feet about, my dear.
Oh, the great big Irishman,
The rattling, battling Irishman–
The stamping, ramping, swaggering, staggering,
leathering swash of an Irishman.

He took so much of Lundy-foot
That he used to snort and snuffle—O!
And in shape and size the fellow’s neck
Was as bad as the neck of a buffalo.
Oh, the horrible Irishman,
The thundering, blundering Irishman–
The slashing, dashing, smashing, lashing,
thrashing, hashing Irishman.

His name was a terrible name, indeed,
Being Timothy Thady Mulligan;
And whenever he emptied his tumbler of punch
He ’d not rest till he fill’d it full again.
The boozing, bruising Irishman,
The ’toxicated Irishman–
The whiskey, frisky, rummy, gummy, brandy,
no dandy Irishman.

This was the lad the lady lov’d,
Like all the girls of quality;
And he broke the skulls of the men of Leith,
Just by the way of jollity.
Oh, the leathering Irishman,
The barbarous, savage Irishman–
The hearts of the maids, and the gentlemen’s heads,
were bother’d I’m sure by this Irishman.

William Maginn was an Irish poet and general writer born at Cork on July 10, 1794. He was graduated at Trinity College Dublin in 1811 and in 1819, when he was 25 years old; his Alma Mater conferred upon him the degree of LL D. He was, at the time, the youngest man to have received that dignity and called himself Doctor Maginn thereafter. He taught at the school he inherited from his father for some time and began to contribute to Blackwood Magazine, sometimes using the pen name, Sir Morgan O’Doherty, although it is believed that a number of contributors to Blackwood used the same pen name or collaborated together in its use. Thus, many pieces that Maginn did not write were attributed to him.

William Maginn Contemporaries
Letitia E. Landon
Thomas Love Peacock
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Heinrich Heine