Sir,—The rhyme at the end of your piece on Bernard ‘Barney’ Hughes (HI 32.5, Sept./Oct. 2024, On This Day) brought back memories of a chant we had in boarding school in St Flannan’s College, Ennis, Co. Clare, in the early ’50s. The food wasn’t too good and the girls that served it were called Demos’s after the famous Greek orator. It must have been based on the song of Barney’s bread:
Don’t eat Demos’s bread,
’Twill stick to your belly like lead;
You’ll fart like thunder
That your mother will wonder,
So, don’t eat Demos’s bread!
—Yours etc.,
SEAMUS J. KING
Cashel, Co. Tipperary