My Uncle Joe used to love that song, but there are lines he sang differently. Knowing very little of the places and times, I am unsure as to the meanings.

He maintained that "Carrickfergus" refereed to the castle on the coast near Belfast. So the line he used was "I wish I was in Carrickfergus, Antrim, Dunluce, or the Belfast plain."

His other line that he sang differently was "And in Killkenny, she is recorded; on a marble stone there, as black as ink." He maintained the song to revere a lost love, now dead.

As to the age of the song, he claimed it was written by an Irish immigrant, in Gaelic, but fairly recently, say in the early 1900's. He claimed the English words were common in the Army among Irish/American soldiers.

However, Uncle Joe told a lot of stories, and this may not be true either.

Mikal (Now I have this song in my head...)