Well, I'm not sure in which order you might sing them. I think each verse tells its own story, but the last verse I always heard sung last in the song. I never found out who was the Yankee, but Yanceanai and Ameiriceanach are treated differently in the Gealtacht (Irish-speaking areas). A Yanceanai is someone whose been in America and has returned to Ireland but an Ameiriceanach is someone who comes from America to visit.

There are lots of these songs that have now become in-jokes in their own right; only the people living at the time and hearing the song then, would know who Mary or Musheen or Muirsheen actually was, and of course who was the Yankee.

Other songs like it are, O'Conal's Hat and, The Tailor Bawn and the Gander and maybe too, The man who came home from Pretoria. They could have all been written by one man, certainly all came about at the turn of the 19th Century, and I think it was Sean O' Tuama, or Seanin Nora Aodha, as he was called then who wrote them. The same humour and texture of words are there. But anyway, it doesn't matter now anymore. Enjoy the song.