This is one of those songs which would probably have disappeared if Packie hadn't preserved it. The notes by Mike Yates to the CD Donegal & Back! just issued by Veteran VT132CD state that it is possibly from an early 19th century stage play. Mike Yates goes on to say that the song appeared on an English broadside, and that a version of the song was collected in Gloucestershire before the Great War by Alfred Williams who later published the text in his Folk Songs of the Upper Thames.

Packie Byrne told Mike Yates that there are at least a dozen airs to the song, but that the one he uses comes from the Glens of Antrim and that he got the words from a Sarah Hegarty of Donegal.

If Kitty doesn't beat me to it I'll try to note the words for you.