We have recorded this a number of times; usually from Travellers. It can be heard on the Musical Traditions CD 'From Puck To Appleby' sung by Kerry Traveller Mikeen McCarthy.
All the Traveller singers have associated it with the ceremony which takes place at Puck Fair, held annually in Kilorglin in County Kerry on the 10th , 11th and 12th of August. A wild puck goat is captured, brought into the town on the first day and 'crowned king of the fair'. It is then hoisted onto a platform high above the proceedings (nowadays there is a covered shelter on top to house your man). It remains tethered there (well fed and watered), for the three days, after which it is released.
In order to protect passers by from 'unwanted substances' a canvas sheet is suspended below the platform to catch anything untoward; this is emptied when the puck is brought down on the third day, by somebody pushing the sheet up from underneath with a broom or a pole. A local piseog is that if a passing woman is splashed by the pee she will almost certainly become pregnant before the year is out.
An excellent study of the fair, entitled 'Puck Fair, History and Traditions', by Brian Houlihan, was published by Treaty Press, Limerick in 1999. This includes nearly a dozen songs and poems about the fair, including one, 'Puck Fair', which was recorded from Kerry Traveller Christie Purcell by the BBC in the early 1950s
Jim Carroll
PS The fair and ceremony are believed to date back to 1613, though the Travellers have a story, told to us by Mikeen McCarthy, about the origins of putting up the goat.
An old Travelling man bringing a puck goat in for sale into Kilorglin; went into a pub, leaving the goat tethered to the stump of a tree. He was in the pub so long that by the time he came out the stump had grown high into the air and the goat was perched on top of it. The locals started the ceremony in commemoration of the event.