The Ballykillduff Steampunk

The Ballad of the Ballykillduff Steampunk

Oh gather ye round, both the young and the tough,
And I’ll sing of the steampunk of Ballykillduff,
A brass-bolted marvel, all whirring with might,
That clattered and clanked through the village one night.

It started when Jimmy McGroggan, the smith,
Was tinkering late with a wrench and a myth.
He hammered and welded by lanterns aglow,
Till sparks lit the thatch with a fiery show.

“’Tis a harvest machine!” he proclaimed with delight,
“’Twill gather the turnips by day or by night.
It’ll churn up the bogland, and thresh all the wheat,
And perhaps,”—here he whispered—“it’ll make chips to eat.”

But once it was built, with a hiss and a wheeze,
It puffed out its steam like a kettle with fleas.
The cogs all collided, the gauges went wild,
And the creature went stomping off roaring and riled.

It thundered through hedgerows, it trampled the gate,
It flattened the priest’s prized allotment of late.
It whistled at widows, it belched at the cows,
And scattered the hens with its riveted brows.

The schoolchildren squealed, “Let us ride on its back!”
They clambered aboard with a laugh and a smack.
But the teacher cried out, “By the holy Saint Duff,
That steampunk’s no toy for Ballykillduff!”

The postman pursued it with letters in hand,
The barman gave chase with a keg from his stand,
The fiddler struck up just to keep them in time,
And the blacksmith was shouting, “The fault isn’t mine!”

It rattled through Ballykillduff’s only street,
With pistons for legs and a boiler for feet.
The doctor declared, “It’ll give me a case—
Of ulcers and headaches all over the place!”

It crashed through the chapel, it toppled a pew,
(It played the church organ while passing straight through.)
The bell gave a clang as it twisted the tower,
Then roared off again at a hundred horse-power.

The villagers gathered, all scratching their heads,
“It’s worse than the banshee,” the old woman said.
“’Tis worse than the fairies, or drought, or the blight,
And it’ll be back ere the fall of the night!”

So they hatched up a plan with both cunning and guff
To capture the steampunk of Ballykillduff.
They baited it first with a barrel of stout,
Then shouted, “Come drink it!” and gave a great shout.

It halted. It puffed. And it let out a sigh,
Its chimney bent sideways, its boiler ran dry.
The villagers swarmed it with ropes and with chains,
And tied down its wheels with the strength of the mains.

“Now what shall we do?” said the barman with glee,
“Destroy it, or keep it for making the tea?”
The priest scratched his head, and the schoolchildren roared,
“Let’s ride it to Tullow! Adventure assured!”

So to this very day, when the turnips are rough,
They wheel out the steampunk of Ballykillduff.
It coughs and it splutters, it dances a jig,
It plays reels and jigs on a steam-powered rig.

And when the night falls and the stars start to glow,
You’ll hear it go thumping down lanes as it goes.
With villagers cheering, both gentle and gruff,
Long live the steampunk of Ballykillduff!