Hi - there's a good discussion the tune for this song above, so I'm going to close l-man's thread and move the messages here so we don't split the discussion.
...but the quick answer is that the tune is "Sean South of Garryowen."
-Joe Offer-

---

Here's what the Traditional Ballad Index says about the song:

Roddy McCorley

DESCRIPTION: "Oh see the fleet-foot host of men..." who are hurrying to stage a rescue. "For young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today." They are too late. The song recalls McCorley's actions; he would not turn traitor even to save his life
AUTHOR: Words: Ethna Carberry (1866-1902)
EARLIEST DATE: c.1798 (Zimmermann)
KEYWORDS: Ireland rebellion death execution
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
February 28, 1800 - Rody McCorley hanged in Toome. (source: Moylan citing John Moulden)
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (5 citations):
OLochlainn-More 100, "Rody MacCorley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Zimmermann 17, "Rody Mac Corly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Moylan 123, "Rody MacCorley" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 324, "Roddy McCorley" (1 text)
DT, RMCORLEY*
RECORDINGS:
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, "Roddy McCorley" (on IRClancyMakem02)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Rody McCorley" (subject)
NOTES: The Fiddler's Companion site says "McCurley was a County Antrim rebel leader in the rising of 1798."
The rebels [were] defeated at Antrim in June 1798. If any of [the details in the song "Rody McCorley are] accurate he might have been executed Good Friday, April 6, 1798 or, more likely, March 22, 1799.
Zimmermann: "Rody McCorley was hanged c.1798." [But see Moylan's note.]
A. T. Q. Stewart, The Summer Soldiers: The 1798 Rebellion in Antrim and Down, Blackstaff Press, 1995, p. 156, gives this account: "Of the Toome rebels are remembered at all, it is because of Roddy McCorley. A young Presbyterian from Duneane whose family had been evicted from their farm after the death of his father, he was in hiding for nearly a year after the rebellion before being betrayed, tried by court martial at Ballymena, and hanged 'near the Bridge of Toome' on Good Friday, 1799." In the footnote to this paragraph, Stewart adds, "Though hardly mentioned in Presbyterian annals, Roddy McCorley is a major figure in nationalist martyrology because he became the subject of a famous song." Guess which one.
Moylan: .". by Ethna Carberry (Anna [Johnson] MacManus b. 1866), was written in the 1890s and may have been based on ["Rody McCorley"]. - BS
According to Hoagland, 1000 Years of Irish Poetry, p. 775, the name was spelled "Carbery" (a spelling supported by Granger's Index to Poetry, though Robert Gogan, 130 Great Irish Ballads [third edition, Music Ireland, 2004], p. 112, has the spelling "Ethna Carbury"); her collected poems were published posthumously in The Four Winds of Erin. Granger's cites six of her poems; this, interestingly, is not among them. - RBW..
File: FSWB324

---

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2016 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.

---

Here are the Digital Tradition lyrics:

RODDY MCCORLEY
(Words by Ethna Carberry; music traditional)

O see the fleet-foot host of men, who march with faces drawn,
From farmstead and from fishers' cot, along the banks of Ban;
They come with vengeance in their eyes. Too late! Too late are
they,
For young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome
today.

Oh Ireland, Mother Ireland, you love them still the best
The fearless brave who fighting fall upon your hapless breast,
But never a one of all your dead more bravely fell in fray,
Than he who marches to his fate on the bridge of Toome today.

Up the narrow street he stepped, so smiling, proud and young.
About the hemp-rope on his neck, the golden ringlets clung;
There's ne'er a tear in his blue eyes, fearless and brave are
they,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome
today.

When last this narrow street he trod, his shining pike in hand
Behind him marched, in grim array, a earnest stalwart band.
To Antrim town! To Antrim town, he led them to the fray,
But young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

The grey coat and its sash of green were brave and stainless then,
A banner flashed beneath the sun over the marching men;
The coat hath many a rent this noon, the sash is torn away,
And Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

Oh, how his pike flashed in the sun! Then found a foeman's heart,
Through furious fight, and heavy odds he bore a true man's part
And many a red-coat bit the dust before his keen pike-play,
But Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

There's never a one of all your dead more bravely died in fray
Than he who marches to his fate in Toomebridge town today;
True to the last! True to the last, he treads the upwards way,
And young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

Recorded by Kingston Trio, Clancys. Additional words from RG, overheard
in the White Horse Tavern, NY in 1958
@Irish @rebel @death @war @death @war
filename[ RMCORLEY
TUNE FILE: RMCORLEY
CLICK TO PLAY
RG http://www.8notes.com/digital_tradition/gif_dtrad/ROCKYTOP.gif