What It Means To Be Irish

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE IRISH You won’t play professional basketball Your cousin is a cop Or maybe just a fireman Your swearing just won’t stop You think that you can sing well You can’t make a long story short There’s a difference between losing your temper And killing someone they report At least one of your aunt’s a Sister And one of your uncle’s a priest You’re strangely poetic when drinking And you’re drinking too much at least You’ll get punched for something your parents Or maybe their parents had done Your childhood meals were boiled Instant potatoes you shun Your sisters or cousins are Mary Or Catherine or even Eileen You know someone named Murphy, Mic, Sully If not then it’s your name I mean Someone in your family is generous Generous almost to fault You can’t wait until you can start talking You start before they even halt You may not know the words to that old song But that doesn’t stop you for long You sing out your own variation Of any old Irishman’s song No secret is safe in your keeping Genetically you have to share You’re not nearly as funny as you think But the Irish in you doesn’t care You have the Irish Alzheimer You forget everything but the grudge You have relatives that simply aren’t speaking Not fighting – they simply won’t budge To tan or not tan takes no thinking You might tan but only in spots Your remedy for common colds is Whiskey and sometimes it’s lots There’s no leaving a big family party Without hugging and saying goodbyes That takes at least 45 minutes And no one can leave with dry eyes But that also means that you are lucky The luckiest people alive For you have that Irish blood in you And the Irish will always survive