I am surprised to hear that there is an Irish language version of this song. Of course, maybe it has been translated from the English, as a number of other songs have been.

This was one of my favorite songs when I started singing Irish songs, so when I first went to Ireland in 1982, I went to the site. If my memory serves me correctly, the bus line went as far as Upper Ballindary so I walked to Lower Ballindary, where the remains of the castle still lie. (I don't remember any townland named Portmore, although Lough Beag is named Lake(?) Portmore in English.) I got into conversation with an old man on the side of the road, mentioned the song, and he said that it was a mighty song and long, too--had twenty verses or so. Since I knew only the three verses listed above from the O'Boyle book, I was intrigued and determined to find the rest of them.

I won't go into the long story about the many welcoming and accommodating locals I met those two days, but I did eventually find the entire song (which is listed on another thread, I believe), and stood on the foundation stones of Portmore Castle itself.

In all that time I never heard of an Irish version. My impression was that the Lower Ballindary area was pretty strongly Protestant and that there was no Irish spoken in the area. Of course, I could well be wrong about that. (And, yes, I am aware that some Protestants speak Irish, but I believe it's a safe generalization that there is little Irish spoken in Protestant areas.) Also, a song in praise of an English castle would not likely be written in Irish.

Could there be another Portmore? Or another song in Irish to the same tune?

Cheers,

David