The subject of this song is Edward Cassidy who was transported with his two brothers having been convicted of throwing a clergyman's horse off a cliff in County Fermanagh in 1830. he returned to Fermanagh in 1849. Peter Magennis tells his story as a sub-plot in his short novel 'The Treasurer' serialised in the Lisbellaw Gazette in 1880 and includes a version of the song in the tale.