Jim the Master Family Document & Typed Version



Come enter and i'll tell ye a tale of great renown
Of how they tried to change the Post down in Wicklow town.
If started in a simple way, as these things always do
And soon became a question affecting me and you.
A subpostmistress got the word her future wasn't bright
The Minister had drawn his sword to tale away her right
She thought she would succeed her Aunt who served for many a year.
And to the local people there, herself she did endear.

Miss Helen Cooke soon got the news that she would lose the post
Ans when the people heard her views they said it wasn't just
The Minisher had picked a man to follow in her shoes
His name was Michael Farrell, so he came into the news.
The people said that Everett has surely made a choice
Dictated by politics, not by popular choice.
So this was how the row began and whipped the tempers high
And brought the town of Baltinglass into the public eye.

The Poloticiand joined the war on both sides of the fence
The problem down in Baltinglass bacame a consequence
What was a local thing became a princlipe acute
Ans spread throughout the counrty as a national dispute
The War in far Korea which had held the public eye
Was now but so much chicken fed against this hue and cry
And even joseph Stalin within the Kremlin walls
"This bares the Cold War black and blue" to Molotov he calls

This crowns the siege of Berlin, we'll send a boy from Tass
To write the party lines of how things ae in Baltinglass
The life and times of Baltinglass were publised in the Press
And "Life" and "Time" send down their men to write about the mess.
The Irish Press in virtous vain made capital galore
And then the London Daily Mail came in to count the score.
The Partiscan of Baltinglass said this is like Tobruk
So the formed in a picket line to ground the house of Cooke.

Then when Post Office engineers came down to their stuff
By order of the Minister, they said this was enough
They sat upon the flagstones when they tried to dig a trench



But the partisans of Baltinglass they would not budge an inch
With faces grim they set out themselves their favorite to defend
Defying Mr Everett his flying squads to send.
And when the party took its stand behind the grabber Farrell
The douched the lights of Baltinglass to vitiate the quarrel.

Montgomery's chief of staff was there and Dennis was his name
Women also came to share the town's new founded fame
Dail Eireann too was fighting, wild invective flowed and cant
And some say that picket could call the Queen her Aunt
Smith, Flanagan and Sean Lemass took up the cudgels too
Hard words said of Baltinglass, of Everett and his crew
The echoes of the battle reaching the highest in the land
But yet the problem was unsolved, the people kept their stand.

This crisis mounted day by day and reached a pretty pass
But no one could restore the peace to troubled Baltinglass
Some thought that McArthur might be asked to come across
But others said he couldn't while he tried to cut his loss
T'was said that efforts were bring made just as we go to press
To introduce the question in the halls of Lake Success.

They used to stay in Ireland that Democracy was dead
But since this grave discussion it has jumped right out of bed
Flags, pickets and alarm bells are working in show
While carpenters are finished firing up the PO