The “Strings and Song” group dressed in festive green and performed a series of Irish folk songs at the Hawks Nest Community Centre.

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“This is the first time the music group has used the new Hawks Nest annex, which was formally opened as the MU3A’s new home last week,” Music Co-ordinator Deb Howe told News Of The Area.

Raucous drinking songs such as, “If you’re Irish, come into the parlour”, were interspersed with “I’m looking over a four-leaf clover” and “The Unicorn” – in recognition of the luck of the Irish, both good and bad.

Musical members of the group have been learning and playing their ukuleles, banjos, guitars, and even some hybrids, for various lengths of time, but everyone was able to join in with the singing as the lyrics were clearly projected upon the new wall.

“This is a celebration of the British Isles’ biggest export – Irish people,” Deb said as she laced the musical session with some obligatory bad jokes.

All-round favourites like “Long, Long Way to Tipperary” were known by all and were a solemn reminder that many Irish songs are as much about lament as luck, or even love, such as the tale of the “Whistling Gypsy Rover”.

Perhaps the saddest was the group’s rendition of the somewhat bleak “Cockles and Mussels”.

“The Dublin anthem is about Molly Malone, a fishmonger by day, with questionable escapades by night, [who] died of a fever.”

Molly has since been immortalised in a Dublin statue, depicting her pushing the cockles and mussels cart.

Other songs struck up were, “The Orange and The Green”, about a boy with parents from each of the two Irelands who would bash everyone in sight and go to church twice every Sunday.

While “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” made for an upbeat change.

Songs like “Black Velvet Band” and “Whiskey in the Jar” carried the strong undertones of a young man longing for a beautiful young woman.

The songs were followed by the most enjoyable of Aussie inherited customs, afternoon tea, which featured home-made cakes and desserts with a distinct green theme.

By Thomas O’KEEFE