School: Drumgownagh

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1. The Half-Sets

   

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   You light - footed trippers that is fond of a tune.
   And searches for fun by the light of the moon
   Go ahead and don't cease in your to advance
   Till you meet what you term a terrible dance
   In all the wide would you could not have met
   A stranger display than the boorish half - set,
   For in distrusted lodges this game was conceived
   And in its performance great numbers believed,
   Now in towns and in villages you can see there,
   The half - set and whole - set performed with care
   These beef eating bullies unfavoured with grace,
   With instincts immoral impious and base,
   These swaggering gents shows their armours taste,
   By catching their co-partners, sometimes by the waist,
   The hands are more commonly used than the feet,
   Which looks most indelicate and indiscreet.
   If memory has not my blockhead forsook,
   I heard a tune played called the one - horned buck,
   And its played I imagine by music - men yet,
   On other tune fits the genteel half-sets,
   When formerly dancing a jig or a reel,
   The music was timed by the toe and the heel,
   But now its a drag a pluck and a hawl,
   Without any attention to music atall,
   The figures are got through all in a few minutes
   By spraddling and hising like asses and jenets

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Máire Ní Brádhaigh

   Gender

   Female

   Address

   Keeldra, Co. Leitrim