We've already got a translation in the bilingual version of the song, but here is a more literal translation by Risteard Mac Gabhann: I'm a little fellow who has journeyed a lot Looking for the best of all places For manners, behaviour, reputation and fame For practices, characteristics and mettle. I know of no province or fine secure town Of all I've seen in my travels, more merry, My eye has never beheld a district so fine, As that place they call Cill Mhuire (chorus) and óró é óró, fine lad, And óró é óró, stretch over to me your hand, There's a jug on the table and it ought to be full, That we may drink the health of Cill Mhuire. [Is ann a bhíonn tionlac' ...] It is there that small birds and gulls, The blackbird, pheasant and starling,[gather] In great hosts on blossoming branches that yield under so much That I would like to count their numbers. The hound pack is baying as it is let out to the hunt, Exhausting the fox with riders after it, There is much blowing of horns and hunreds of huzzas, On the pleasnt little hill of Cill Mhuire. There is too a merry corner for the artistic set. Where the cleverst authros are read, They have drinking and pleasure, dancing and racing, And music there played sweetly, There's a team of stout men that defy description, Who, on the field of conflict, have never bowed to their enemy. That's the end of my deeds, but let beer be poured for us, So that we may drink the health of Cill Muire. ---- note that the bilingual version (2nd post in this discussion) has 4 verses; the second verse of that text is given by Liam or by Risteard. The following verse, about birds and hunting, is rather embellished in the poetic translation on the broadsheet "Roses, pinks, daisies and laurels,A cover for foxes and badgers and hares." The flowers, badgers and hares are not specified in the Irish lines about flourishing branches. --- another recording of Cill Mhire is Tomás Ó Súilleabháin on "Ceolta Éireann" Gael Linn CEFCD001
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