Here's a text, possibly a source for the song, from the Wearing of the Green Songbook. The title page is missing, but on the front inner cover is signed "Patrick Kenny, Derby, Conn. 1889" . . . but just below that is written, in the same hand, "Mr. Patrick Kenny, Derby Conn. 1904 . . ." (crossed out) and then "1889", again(?). Could be a birth date? Hard to say for certain. Unfortunately, no publishing information remains anywhere on the book, but it looks like something that would have been published late 19th / early 20th century in North America, almost certainly in the Northeast (New York City?).

That's what I have. Anyone else?

OLD SKIBBEREEN

By Patrick Carpenter

Air, - 'The Wearing of the Green'

'O Father, dear, I've often heard you speak of Erin's Isle,
Its scenes how bright and beautiful, how 'rich and rare' they smile;
You say it is a lovely land in which a prince might dwell;
They why did you abandon it, the reason to me tell?'

'My son, I've loved my native land with fervor and with pride
Her peaceful groves, her mountains rude, her valleys green and wide,
And there I've roamed in manhood's prime, and sported when a boy,
My shamrock and shillelagh sure constant boast and joy.

'But lo! a blight came o'er my crops, my sheep and cattle died,
The rack-rent too, alas! was due, I could not have supplied
The landlord drove me from the cot where born I had been,
And that, my boy, 's the reason why I left old Skibbereen.

"O, what a dreadful sight it was that dark November day!
The sheriff and the peelers came to send us all away;
They set the roof a-blazing, with demon smile of spleen,
And when it fell, the crash was heard all over Skibbereen

'Your mother dear, God rest her soul! fell upon the snowy ground;
She fainted in her anguish at the desolation round;
She never rose, but passed away from life's tumultuous scene,
And found a quiet grave of rest in poor old Skibbereen.

'Ah! sadly I recall that year of gloomy Forty-Eight.
I rose in vengeance with 'the boys' to battle against fate.
We were hunted thro' the mountains wild, as thraitors to the Queen,
And that, my boy, 's the reason why I left old Skibbereen.

'You were only two years old, and feeble was your frame;
I would not leave you with my friends, you bore my father's name!
I wrapped you in my 'cathamore' at the dead of night unseen,
We heav'd a sigh and bade good by to poor old Skibbereen.'

O father, father, when the day for vengeance we will call,
When Irishmen o'er field and fen shall rally one and all,
I"ll be the man to lead the van beneath the flag of green,
While loud on high we'll raise the cry, Revenge for Skibbereen!'