Casey Casebeer, Julie Hernigan and Abby Sale requested that I post this here. I was sick of all the alternate English-language lyrics that bear almost no relation to the original Gaeilge lyrics of this traditional Irish song, so I wrote this a few years ago. In fact, when I sang it in a circle today, one person remarked, "Hey, that's to the tune of COME BY THE HILLS" which is, alas backwards... CBtH took its tune from the much older Irish song, Buachaill ón Éirne.

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Buachaill ón Éirne - English scansion translation (lyr: Heather L. Preston)

I'm a boy from the Erne, and the colleens are all charmed by me.
I’d wed not for wealth as I’m rich as old King Laoghaire [pronounced: Lear-uh or Leary].
Mine the vastness of Cork, and two sides of the glen of Tyrone.
If I don’t change my ways, I'll be heir to the County Mayo.

Tomorrow I’m off to a glade in the wood to make ale
With no cot, and no gruel and no boat, yet will I set sail
But the leaves of the branches will lovingly shelter my head
And O! Good for you! As your gaze kindly toward me is led.

A cowherd, my darling, I'm never accustomed to be
But music and drink on the mountain is heaven to me
Though my wealth be all lost, still the treasure that’s greatest is mine,
For your kiss I remember, the sweetest of fruits on the vine.

My darling, my love, do not marry a man old and gray
But marry a young man, my pet, if he lives but a day,
For where would you be with no child of your heart ever born,
Who would love you and miss you with tears at eve or at morn?
Thanks!
Heather