These lyrics are copied from Gather Round Me: The Best of Irish Popular Poetry By Christopher Cahill (see link above):


THE GALBALLY FARMER
Diarmuid O Riain (1777-1885)

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 being 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 miserable miser, he mounted his steed.
To the Galbally mountains he hastened with speed,
And surely I thought that my poor heart would bleed
As I tried to keep up with his travel.
When we came to his cottage, I entered it first.
It seemed like a kennel or a 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 was more green than white.
'Twould give you the trotting disorder.
The wet old potatoes would poison the cat,
And the barn where my bed was, was swarming with rats.
'Twas little I thought it would e'er be my lot
To lie in that hole until mornings.

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,
And I wished that I never saw Galbally Town
Or the sky over Darby O'Leary!

I've worked in Kilconnel. I've worked in Kilmore.
I've worked in Knockainy and Shanballymore,
In Pallas-A-Nicrer 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 have never yet seen
Than I got from old Darby O'Leary!