And he took us back way back in time before the Black and Tan
When he was coming to his prime a young and powerful man.
He took us back to his young years back to the curfew time
When to be caught out after dark was punishable crime
He lived through World war 1 and 2 he told of what he see
The unhappiness that war can bring the man made misery.
He took us back way back the years prior to the motor car
To the days of horse drawn vehicles before the first World War
He told of how hard people worked and of the hardships they did endure
And happiness was common then though many were quite poor.
He told about the haunted homes that families fled in fright
And i had nightmares of strange things, strange voices in the night
And breaking glass and rattling doors, weird laugh and piercing scream
And i often awoke in tears to find it a bad dream.
A greyhound and hare coursing man and i remember well
We hung on to his every word he had great yarns to tell
He’d been a hunter all his life since he was a school going boy
And he knew the countryside around and where a hare might lie.
He took us back to his young days back to the long ago
And none better to tell a yarn than old ‘Mick Connie O’
We sat around the open fire the burning peat did glow
And he struck a match and lit his pipe ‘ a yarn about to grow’.