Not too long ago, in a village quite near to the Town of the Ford of the Wattle,
Lived Banba, a lass in her twenty-first year, with her da, who was fond of the bottle.
Her teeth were arranged without order or plan
Like the keys of a harpsichord pitched from a van
Down a hill into traffic. She swore like a man
And her features had many a mottle.

Her measure of beauty fell short of the store would fit under a grasshopper’s oxter,
But the fortune she’d have when her da was no more still made many a young fellow’s cock stir.
Though they knew well enough they’d be in for some strife
With a canny but quarrelsome shrew of a wife,
‘Twould be worth it to strike a bonanza for life
For whoever it was that outfoxed her.

Her da had piled up twenty million or so in his time as a building contractor.
In the hallways of power, by all those in the know, Jerry ranked as a principal actor.
Architectural gems he would pound into grit
If they stood on a site he was planning to fit
With some jerry-built villas - as for planning permit,
Sure, permission was never a factor.

His pockets were deep, each one roomy enough to be home to a pet politician.
He kept critics at bay with his bluster and bluff when his scheming came under suspicion.
He had drinking companions among the most high
And the party fund-raisers could always rely
On a check when the cash flow seemed set to run dry,
And his pals staffed the Planning Commission.

Now the wish of her heart was that one come along to wine her and dine her and flatter
One handsome and selfless, courageous and strong, to whom prospects of wealth didn’t matter.
You might think that that day and the Judgement Day too
In the same week must fall -- well the joke is on you,
For along came a hero, he stood six-foot two
And he made fortune hunters all scatter.

Yes, Locky McLachlan’s the name that he gave when he first caught young Banba’s attention.
He was strong, he was sweet, he was true, he was brave, he was perfect in every dimension,
Save a mist that no sunbeam of sense could dispel
Had alighted at birth on his brain -- truth to tell
He was thick as a board-- but he served just as well
As a fellow with more comprehension!

Now the da had procured, for a very low price, a fine site in the heart of the city
With intent to develop -- to be more precise, to demolish its stock without pity.
But chief among all of the buildings that would
Be set for destruction was one gem which stood
Quite apart from the others in its neighborhood,
Palladian pride of the Downtown Committee.

So Banba explained to her newly found beau that her dad was intent on supplying
To the hinwis of Wattle Ford, shelter from snow and from rain and from wind, while complying
With ninety percent of the laws -- truth be told
There was one little clause if they had to uphold
Sure the hinwis would all be left out in the cold,
So there’d be little harm in defying.

“What’s a hinwi ?“asked Locky, that innocent youth, causing Banba to start into swearing.
“What a numbskull!” she said, in a manner uncouth, with a look that would kipper a herring.
“Yerra, everyone knows that a hinwi’s a man
With buckets of money -- you can tell by his tan
And the shine of his shoes, and a certain elan
And the fit of the suit he is wearing.”

Come Whitsun the peons who normally swarm to the heart of that great conurbation
Would be gone for the weekend -- the weather being warm as they left for a three-day vacation
Then Jerry, pursuing his plan to be rich
And with not a soul watching, the son of a bitch
Planned to tumble that noble pile into the ditch
Unconcerned at the loss to the nation!

One Palladian façade he conspired to tear down, but a villa he set for completion,
An eyesore in brick in the same part of town, lacking harmony, scale or cohesion:
The top storey Tudor, the lower Baroque,
The plumbing of plastic, the doorbell of oak,
The entrance designed with intent to evoke
An impression of classic Venetian.

It had marble and granite and rosewood and teak, it was lavish in every particular,
With the wiring arranged by the latest technique and a garage for storage vehicular,
The foyer flamboyant with flourish and frill
With carvings and ‘scutcheons on lintel and sill
Like a set from a saga by C.B. de Mille
And the walls, they were quite perpendicular.

But the week before Whit, as was often his bent, Jerry went on an almighty bender,
With the whiskey and porter, and evenings ill-spent in wild romps with the opposite gender
So knackered that morning, he thought he would die
If he stirred out of bed -- even opened an eye --
‘Could you fill in?’ asked Banba. Said Locky, ‘I’ll try’,
Quite averse as he was to offend her.

You may ask - and who’d blame you? - though Jerry was sick, at the end of his seven-day ruction,
Could Locky be thought a reliable pick, for a work of such subtle destruction?
Just recall that the method envisioned the use
Of a dynamite charge with a nicely-timed fuse
And that Locky himself was extremely obtuse --
Well, the answer takes little deduction.

The foreman was Polish, the workers were Letts, and of English they had but a smattering,
Made up mainly of curse words and coarse epithets, as employed in desultory nattering,
But of words for instructions like ‘Don’t touch that switch!’
Or ‘Heads down me boys, there’s a bit of a hitch!’
Or ‘Scamper for cover!’ or ‘Dive in the ditch!’
If I said that they knew, I’d be flattering.

Locky first called the Pole, and the Pole called a Lett (as the umpire does, often, in tennis)
And the dynamite charge was most carefully set near that entrance redolent of Venice.
Wait a minute! -- ‘twas not near the new house at all
It was meant to be placed, but the opposite wall!
The clock ticks -- it will soon be too late to recall!
‘Twas an atmosphere pregnant with menace.

We proceed at long last to the sad denoument of this story of cunning and blunder.
To be brief (for this verse is already so long, that I still have your ear is a wonder),
When Locky called out the instruction to blast
At the time when the charge was two hundred yards past
Where it should be, the old house stood fast
While the new one came down with a thunder!

I neglected to mention that Locky had thought, in a flash of untutored simplicity
That what Jerry’s firm needed but never had sought was a dollop of helpful publicity;
So the night before Whitsun, before going to bed
He had called RTE, wished good evening, and said,
If they came in the morning, with cameras, ahead
Was a thrill of unmatched authenticity.

---------

There were questions being asked on the floor of the Dail and tribunals from here to infinity
There were lawsuits afoot. Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, denied Jerry was of their affinity.
Politicians who lately had clasped to their breast
This same chancer, now called for his speedy arrest
Meanwhile claiming the record was bound to attest
They had never been in his vicinity.

As for Banba and Locky, it’s often been said that the paths of true love can be crooked,
And the fact that one party was soft in the head -- sure, the other might well overlook it.
But she, when she saw what was done to her dad
In the wake of the blast, she went stark raving mad
And gave Locky the ring back. That innocent lad
Saw his chance to escape--and he took it!

------------------------------------