I finally transcribed the words for the long version by Kerry poet Sigerson Clifford. I have a few questions about names and words, but let me post this first:

THE TINKER'S DAUGHTER
by Sigerson Clifford, c 1955

When rooks ripped home at evening tide
And trees pegged shadows to the ground
The tinkers came to Corrin Bridge
And camped beside the Bremen Mound [Famine Mound]

With long haired horse and boney ass
And with blue wheeled cart and caravan
And she, the fairest of them all,
The daughter of the tinker clan

The sun shown on her red, red hair
And in her eyes there were stars of mirth
Her body held the willow's grace
Her feet scarce touched the springing earth

The night spread its star-tasseled shawls,
The river gossiped over stones
She sat beside the camping fire,
And she sang the songs the tinkers own

There were songs as old as turning wheels
And sweet as bird throats after rain
Deep wisdom of the wild, wet earth
The pain of joy, the joy of pain.

A farmer going by the field
To tend his cattle in the byre
He saw her like some faery queen
Between the river and the fire.

Her beauty filled his brooding blood
Her magic mounted in his head
He stole her from the tinker clan
And on the morrow they were wed.

And when the sunlight swamped the hills
And birdsongs drowned the rivers bells
the tinkers quenched their hazel fires
And climbed the pallet road to Kells [pallid road]

And it was from her house she watched them fade
And vanish in the yellow firs [yellow furze]
A cold wind blew across the sun
And silenced all the singing birds.

She saw the months run on and on
She saw the river fret and foam
at break of day the rooster called
At dim of dusk the cows came home

And too, the ebbing sea that flung
A net of sound all about the stars
It set strange hills dancing in her dreams
It meshed her to the wandering cars

She stole out from her sleeping man
She fled the town that tied her down
Her face was to the rising sun
And her back was to the tired town

She climbed the pallet road to Kells [pallid road]
All against the hill, all against the wind
In Glenbay of the mountain streams [Glenbeigh]
She came upon her tinker kin

They bedded her between the wheels
And there her son was born
She heard the tinker women's praise
Before she died that morn.

And now the years flew by like frightened birds
That spill a feather and then are gone
. The farmer walked his wakeful fields
And he made the tinkers travel on

No more they camped by Corrin Bridge [Carhan Bridge]
Or coaxed their fires to fragrant flame
He saw them with his dog and gun
He spat and cursed their name

And when autumn hid the hawthorn trees
From stars she stole from out the sky
There came a barefoot tinker lad
With red, red hair and laughing eyes

He left the road, he crossed the field
The farmer shot him in the side
The smile went from his parting lips,
He told his name and died.

And that evening when the neighbors came,
They found the son there upon the floor
The saw the farmer swinging low
Between the window and the door

The laid the son upon the cart
They cut the swaying farmer down
And they swear a tinker woman came
With them all the way to town
.

And the sun shown on her red, red hair
And in her eyes there were stars of mirth
Her body held the willow's grace
Her feet scarce touched the springing earth

They buried the men in Kiel Varn Og [Keelvarnogue]
And eyes were moist and lips were wan,
But before the mound was patted down
They say the tinker maid was gone.
^^

---

Note from Joe Offer (10 March 2014) - Martin Ryan offered corrections below to these lyrics that were transcribed by Barbara. I have included Martin's corrections in italics in this post.