Finnegan's Wake (song)


"Finnegan's Wake" is an Irish-American comic folk ballad, first published in New York in 1864. Various 19th-century variety theatre performers, including Dan Bryant of Bryant's Minstrels, claimed authorship but a definitive account of the song's origin has not been established. An earlier popular song, John Brougham's "A Fine Ould Irish Gintleman," also included a verse in which an apparently dead alcoholic was revived by the power of whiskey.
In more recent times, "Finnegan's Wake" was a staple of the Irish folk-music group the Dubliners, who played it on many occasions and included it on several albums, and is especially well known to fans of the Clancy Brothers, who performed and recorded it with Tommy Makem. The song has been recorded by Irish-American Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys.

Summary

In the ballad, the hod-carrier Tim Finnegan, born "with a love for the liquor", falls from a ladder, breaks his skull, and is thought to be dead. The mourners at his wake become rowdy, and spill whiskey over Finnegan's corpse, causing him to come back to life and join in the celebrations. Whiskey causes both Finnegan's fall and his resurrection—whiskey is derived from the Irish phrase uisce beatha, meaning "water of life".

Hiberno-English phrases and terms

Non-English phrases:
  • Thanam 'on dhoul However, in other versions of the song, Tim says "Thunderin' Jaysus."

Use in literature

The song is famous for providing the basis of James Joyce's final work, Finnegans Wake, in which the comic resurrection of Tim Finnegan is employed as a symbol of the universal cycle of life. As whiskey, the "water of life", causes both Finnegan's death and resurrection in the ballad, so the word "wake" also represents both a passing and a rising, not to mention the wake of the lifeship traveling in between. Joyce removed the apostrophe in the title of his novel to suggest an active process in which a multiplicity of "Finnegans", that is, all members of humanity, fall and then wake and arise.
"Finnegan's Wake" is featured at the climax of the primary storyline in Philip José Farmer's award-winning novella, Riders of the Purple Wage.

Recordings

Many bands have performed Finnegan's Wake including notably: