Thanks for all the responses. Having found the words, I am discouraged at how prolix they are, and how they thud along. No wonder I recall the original tune as ragged and jagged. It had to be, to disguise the unremitting rhythm.

Personal to PJ Curtis: I don't know what you take me for, but I've seen "The Secret of Roan Inish" three times, and I know that a curragh is a small boat, quite incapable of being the site of a horse race. Indeed, my DH and I are probably the only people who ever watched the movie and strained to see how the oarlocks were fashioned on the wooden boats.

"What band has only Tony's?" Well, for one, that famous early one, the Steel Ice Band.