THE GALBALLY FARMER.

One evening of late as I happened to stray,
To the county Tipp'rary I straight took my way,
To dig the potatoes and work by the day,
  I hired with a Galbally farmer.
I asked him how far we were bound for to go.
The night it was dark, and the north wind did blow.
I was hungry and tired and my spirits were low,
  For I got neither whiskey nor cordial.

This niggardly miser he mounted his steed
To the Galbally mountains he posted with speed;
And surely I thought that my poor heart would bleed
  To be trudging behind that old naygur.
When we came to his cottage I entered it first;
It seemed like a kennel or ruined old church:
Says I to myself, "I am left in the lurch
  In the house of old Darby O Leary."

I well recollect it was Michaelmas night,
To a hearty good supper he did me invite,
A cup of sour milk that would physic a snipe—
  'Twould give you the trotting disorder.
The wet old potatoes would poison the cats,
The barn where my bed was was swarming with rats,
'Tis little I thought it would e'er be my lot
  To lie in that hole until morning.

By what he had said to me I understood,
My bed in the barn it was not very good;
The blanket was made at the time of the flood;
  The quilt and the sheets in proportion.
'Twas on this old miser I looked with a frown,
When the straw was brought out for to make my shake down.
I wished that I never saw Galbally town,
  Or the sky over Darby O Leary.

I worked in Kilconnell, I worked in Kilmore,
I worked in Knockainy and Shanballymore,
In Pallas-a-Nicker and Sollohodmore,
  With decent respectable farmers:
I worked in Tipperary, the Rag, and Rosegreen,
At the mount of Kilfeakle, the Bridge of Aleen,
But such woeful starvation I never yet seen
  As I got from old Darby O Leary.


—from More Irish Street Ballads by Colm O Lochlainn (Dublin: The Three Candles, 1965), page 114.