The song appears in The Richard Dyer-Bennet Folk Song Book published in 1971. Here is his introduction to the song:

Down by the Sally Gardens
[Traditional Irish Tune]
The words are by William Butler Yeats, and the tune is traditional. Oliver St. John Gogarty, the late Irish writer and physician and, incidentally, the prototype of James Joyce's Buck Mulligan, told me the following anecdote. Gogarty and Yeats were attending a John McCormack concert in Dublin some fifty years ago and McCormack, in response to a demand for encores, said, "I will sing one of our beloved Irish folk songs, 'The Sally Gardens.'" Then, without attributing the words to Yeats, he sang the song hauntingly. As the famous pianissimo died away, and before the thunder of applause, Yeats turned to Gogarty and whispered, "Were it not for the damnable articularity of the man!"

"Sally" is footnoted as meaning Willow. Does anyone know whether "sally" or "salley" is the preferred spelling?
- Phil