In the dacent ould days Before stockings or staysWere invented, or breeches, top-boots and top-hats, You'd search the whole sphere From Cape Horn to Cape ClearAnd never come near to the likes of our Cats Och, tunder! och, tunder! You'd wink wid the wonderTo see them keep under the mice and the rats; And go wild for half shares In the phisants and haresThey pull'd up the backstairs to provision our PatsOch! the Cats of Kilkenny, Kilkenny's wild Cats!
But the shame and the sin Of the Game Laws came in,Wid the gun and the gin of the landlord canats; And the whole box and dice Of the rats and the miceMade off in a trice from our famishing Cats. What did the bastes do? What would I or you?Is it lie down and mew till we starved on our mats?ŻàŻàŻàŻàNot at all, faix! but fallŻàŻàŻàŻàSmall and great, great and small,Wid one grand caterwaul on each other's cravats.Och! the Cats of Kilkenny, Kilkenny's wild Cats!
And that mortial night long We should hark, right or wrong,To the feast and the song of them cannibal Cats,ŻàŻàŻàŻàGladiath'rin awayŻàŻàŻàŻàTill the dawn of the dayIn fifty-three sharps, semiquavers and flats;ŻàŻàŻàŻàAnd when we went roundŻàŻàŻàŻàWid the milk-carts we foundScattered over the ground, like a sprinkle of sprats .-ŻàŻàŻàŻà(All the rest, bit and sup,ŻàŻàŻàŻàOf themselves they'd ate up)Only just the tip-ends of the tails of the Cats,Of the Cats of Kilkenny, Kilkenny's quare Cats!
