The Man From Ballinspittle

Come in me boy and I'll make you tea and I'll put on the electric kettle
That's how they make you feel at home back home in Ballinspittle
And take a chair and rest your feet this life's too short for hurry
The happy man lives on for years because he never worry.

If they have worries they don't show of problems they make little
That's why they grow to ripe old age back home in Ballinspittle
Out here it's go from dawn till dusk the clock it seems our master
A month seems like a year back home and time seems to go faster.

I yearned for wander from young age to live in foreign places
To see what life might offer me and all that life embraces
So in august nineteen fifty nine all home ties I did sever
And I left Ireland and west Cork to live abroad forever.

My mum and dad begged me to stay they cried you are only twenty
And there's no shortage of food here in this house there is plenty
But there is more far more to life than food upon the table
And I'd resolved to see the world whilst I was young and able.

My mum and dad shed tears for me though I did not need their pity
On the day I boarded a ship in Cobh that sailed for New York City
Nine days at sea and so sea sick a nauseating feeling
Another sea trip not for me I'd not find that appealing.

I worked for ten years in New York though I don't like urban living
And most people there seemed cold at heart with far more take than giving
It is a dangerous place to live your life's always in danger
And murder to the 'Big Apple' has never been a stranger.

From there I went to Canada big land of lake and river
But Montreal winters were so cold in bed at night you'd shiver,
I lived and worked there for nine years till wanderlust did beckon
The wanderlust that never die at least that's what some reckon.

And wanderlust had possessed me and I found it my duty
To follow it to New Zealand a land of striking beauty
I worked near Christchurch on a farm in valley green and pretty
And it made a change a welcome change from working in a city.

I find myself in Melbourne now a place of changing weather
But I will soon be out of here soon as my fare's together
The world is big and there's much to see and I've no desire to settle
You'll have another cup of tea I will re-boil the kettle.

He says the world is big so big and of it he's seen so little
But he's still a Cork man at heart the man from Ballinspittle
And more than four decades have gone since he commenced to wander
Since he left Cork in fifty nine to see the great wide yonder.