Come all ye dry land sailors and listen to me song,
Well it's only forty verses and I won't detain ya long,
It's all about the adventure, yar, of this great Lisburn barge,
And the time that I was very near drowned at the twelfth lock of the canal.

Well the captain says, "Young man," he says, "Young man," he says to me,
"Would you like to be a sailor, yar and sail the raging sea?
Would you like to be a sailor, yar and furl and to roam,
For we are bound for Dublin town with a half a ton a dome."

Then early next morning we set sail, the weather was sublime,
As we passed under the old bridge you could hear the town clock chime,
And then we came to the gasworks straits, a very dangerous part,
And we ran aground on a lump a coal that wasn't marked down to the chart.

Then all became confus-i-al and the stormy winds did blow,
The steersman slipped on an orange peel and fell into the hold below,
"Put on more steam!" the captain cried, "For we are sorely pressed",
And the engineer on the banks replied, "Sure, the horse is doing its best."

Then we all fell into the water, yar and we all let out a roar, (Ahhh!)
There was a man that was standing on the bank the canal and he threw in the end of his galluses,
And he pulled us all to shore,
No more I'll be a sailor, yar and sail the raging main,
And the next time I go to Dublin town I'll bloody well go by train.