THE IRISH ROVER   
David Kane, Searsport, ME 10/1941
Helen Harttness Flanders Collection, Middlebury VT
Recording D67A/a   @ 27:15
The Roud Index cites this as the earliest example of this song

?In the year of our Lord fourteen hundred sixty six,
?We set sail from the cove [Cobh] of Cork;?
We were bound far away with a cargo of bricks,?
For the new city hall in New York.
We'd a beautiful craft, she was rigged fore and aft,
?And oh dear how the trade winds they drove her;?
She could stand fearful blasts,
She had seventeen masts?
And we called her the Irish Rover.

There was Murphy and Flynn, Mcarthy and Guinn?
There was O' Malley, O'Brien, Burke and Shay?
And Molloy and McCoy, McKusker and Quinn?
O' Connell, McGuinness, O'Day
There was Leary and Frye, Joyce, Mulcahey and I
? and ? and Grover
And Fitzsimmons and Sly off near Athenry
?In the crew of the Irish Rover.

We had one million bags of the best Sligo rags,
?We had two million boxes of stones;
?We had three million sides of old blind horses' hides,?
And four million boxes of bones.
We had five million hogs and six million dogs,
We had seven million tons of clover
?And eight million bales of white billy goat tails,?
In the freight of the Irish Rover.

So we sailed seven years when the measles broke out,
?The ship lost her way in a fog;?
The whole of the crew was reduced down to two,?
Just myself and the captain's old dog.
Then we struck Plymouth rock with a terrible shock!?
And then she rolled right over?
She turned three times around, and we all got drowned?
In the wreck of the Irish Rover.