(1) This (below) is how I recall Oldcastle (Co Meath) Gerry Farrelly's tender version of the song - a modal air to a slowish waltz tempo
(2) The song held a special place for the Tyrone fluteplayer, Martin McCann, who drew my attention to it as we would back Gerry at ceilis, etc. a couple of decades or so ago
(3) I have no idea how anyone could ever compare this song with "The Maid of the Sweet Brown Knowe".


Oh she lived beside The Anner
at the foot of Slievenamon
a gentle Irish colleen
with mild eyes like the dawn
her cheeks were dewy rosebuds
and her teeth were pearls rare
a snowdrift 'neath the beechen bough
her neck and long brown hair

oh happy was to see her
on a Sunday when the bell
was filling with it's mellow tone
lone wood and grassy dell
and when at eve young maidens
strolled the Anner banks along
the widow's brown-haired daughter
was the lov'liest of the throng

oh brave, brave Irish colleens
we well may call yee brave
for the least of all your perils
are the stormy ocean waves
when you leave your quiet valleys
and cross the Atlantic foam
to hoard your hard-won earnings
for the helpless ones at home

send word to my dear mother
that we'll meet in heav'n above
and tell my little brother
I send him all my love
may the angels ever guard him
was the dying sister's prayer
and folded in the letter
was a braid of nut-brown hair

oh cold and sallow now
my weary heart has grown
for all thy troubles Ireland
and for sorrows of my own
yet with tears my eyes will moisten
when by Anner banks I stray
for The Lilly of the Mountain Brook
who withered far away