Luton St Patrick's Festival 2010

Finnegan’s Wake

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