Ray's solo show "In Belfast Town" had its Off-Broadway premiere at the Irish Arts Center in New York City in March 1986. Set in the docklands of Belfast City, the show is a social history of the York Street/Sailortown district told in story, song, and verse, with a wee bit of dancing thrown in for good measure. 
The show's finale, "As I Roved Back to York Street",  would later become the title track of Ray's autobiographical album, "As I Roved Back..."

In praise of the show, Irish filmmaker/director, Jim Sheridan said: "this is a masterful display of the enduring humour and spirit of the people of Belfast."
The show was directed by James Connolly's grand-nephew, Nye Heron.

as i roved back to york street 'round what's left of sailortown

to find again my childhood days 'midst the changes all around

i was met by rusted gantries stark berths lying bare

no surly gangers curses tore through the dockland air

 

where once my kith 'n' kin set out to sail the seven seas

there's desolation all around nothing but redundancy

now it's mobile pen, it's forklift truck, it's shovel bulk and block

with container box efficiency they've killed the belfast dock

 

no more wine nor whiskey in barney conway's pub

where casual dockers fought 'n' cursed and drank away their sub

the queens and joe mckibbens sure they have vanished too

there's nothing left here any more they've shipwrecked the whole bloody crew

 

where once my parent's parents lived just a stone's throw apart

a great big ugly motorway has ripped out the district's heart

'twas not the bomb nor bullet that ruined our docklands

but the callous rate of progress 

care-of city hall's heartless plans

 

you may think this sentimental just an old fool's dream

to keep harkin' back to the memories of the way things had been

but despite all the hardships and a hovel for a home

we were always rich in friendship it's all we ever owned



as i roved back to york street
'round what's left of sailortown

         

 

    

in belfast town

 

in belfast town 

i was born

in the jubilee ward 

of a mid-march morn

to an existence

where the pains of love

meet damp huddled houses

in sleet drenched streets

 

the ballyhoo bark of scabby dogs

heralds a new dawn

a pot of thick sweet tea

bread ’n’ drippin’

slimy blistered eggs

in a cast iron pan of black-speckled grease

the racing form digested

a dole cheque

fegs

bottles ’n’ half'uns

gee-gees and pints

beaten dockets

the new day old already

 

deathly 

night descends

upon suspicious day’s

nervous watch

unbiased

it entombs

 

york street and sailortown

whiterock and milltown

clonard and woodvale

ardoyne and new lodge

crumlin and cliftonville

turf lodge and twinbrook

old park and skegoniel

lenadoon and ligoniel

 

bawnmore  ballysillan mount vernon  glencairn

dundonald dunmurry derriaghy duncairn

 

the falls and the shankill

andytown and finaghy

the markets

the 'murph

the village

the row 

the bone 

and tigers bay

 

drippin’…………………fried lard

  fegs……………. ………cigarettes

                                bottles ’n’ half-uns…….bottled guinness and whiskey

        gee-gees………………..racing horses

               beaten dockets……….. losing betting slips

 

 

first published in the NYQ poetry magazine issue #61  since revised