April 25, 1924 – they laid Charles Murphy to rest Fifty thousand people lined the streets that day Neath St. Patrick's Cathedral's Crest Mahoney and Foley and McGuire were there And the boss of the Bronx, ol' Eddie Flynn All the way down Fifth Avenue, to the south of Times Square While the rebel songs were dancing in the wind From the Upper West Side to the boweries From the Gas House District to County Cork When the Irish Were Kings of New York I'd been a horse car driver for a year or so On the Twenty-Third St. 'cross town line After work, the boys would go down to Charlie's place For beer and soup for just a dime Through the din you could hear big Tim Sullivan He had a laugh nobody could ignore When the Irish Were Kings of New York We had Al Smith up in Albany Jimmy Walker running a dirty city game Fitzgerald at the Biltmore, Dempsey in the ring George M. was the prince of Broadway We had a Tammany sweep all down Fourteenth St. Cardinal Hayes knocking on the Vatican door When the Irish Were Kings of New York Petty crooks and Donny Brooks And the power so abused Maybe we never realized we Had everything to lose Our heroes that rose from these city streets Became the ghosts of our past From the Capitol down to the Fulton Docks When LaGuardia came in, things changed so fast From the shadows where we built the Brooklyn Bridge The tiger whispered "Nevermore" When the Irish Were Kings of New York When the Irish Were Kings of New York