Irish Rover (Anonymous)
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- Editor: Christopher Hoyt (submitted 2021-01-24). Score information: Letter, 4 pages, 253 kB Copyright: CPDL
- Edition notes:
General Information
Title: Irish Rover
Composer: Anonymous
Lyricist:
Number of voices: 4vv Voicing: SATB
Genre: Secular, Folksong
Language: English
Instruments: A cappella
First published: 2021
Description:
External websites:
Original text and translations
English text
In the year of our Lord eighteen-hundred and six,
We set sail from the cold bay of Cork.
We were sailin' away with a cargo of bricks
For the grand city hall of New York.
We'd an elegant craft.
She was rigged fore and aft,
And oh! how the wild winds drove her.
She had twenty seven masts,
And withstood sev'ral blasts,
And they called her the Irish Rover.
There was Barney McGee
From the banks of the Lee,
There was Hogan from County Tyrone,
There was Charlie McGurk,
who was scared stiff of work,
And a chap from Westmeath called Malone,
There was Slugger O' Toole,
Who was drunk as a rule,
And fighting Bill Tracy from Dover,
And your man, Mick McGann
from the banks of the Bann
was the skipper of the Irish Rover.
Well, we had five million bags
of the best Sligo rags,
We had six million barrels of stones,
And we had seven million bales
of old nanny goats' tails,
We had eight million barrels of bones.
We had nine million hogs,
Ten million dogs,
Eleven million barrels of porter,
And we had twelve million sides
of old blind horses hides
In the hold of the Irish Rover.
We had sailed seven years,
When the measles broke out,
And the ship lost her way in a fog.
And the whole of the crew
Was reduced down to two:
just meself and the captain's old dog.
Well, the ship struck a rock.
Lord, what a shock!
The boat, she turned right over.
She turned nine nine times around,
And the poor old dog was drowned,
And I'm the last of the Irish Rover.