Samuel Lover, "Rory O'More: A National Romance" (London: Bentley, 1837), I, p. 234:



Oh! if all the young maidens was blackbirds and thrishes, [sic
Oh! if all the young maidens was blackbirds and thrishes,
Oh! if all the young maidens was blackbirds and thrishes,
It's then the young men would be batin' the bushes.

Oh! if all the young maidens was ducks in the wather,
Oh! if all the young maidens was ducks in the wather,
Oh! if all the young maidens was ducks in the wather,
It's then the young men would jump in and swim afther.

Oh! if all the young maidens was birds on a mountain,
Oh! if all the young maidens was birds on a mountain,
Oh! if all the young maidens was birds on a mountain,
It's then the young men would get guns and go grousin'.

If the maidens was all throut and salmon so lively,
If the maidens was all throut and salmon so lively,
If the maidens was all throut and salmon so lively,
Oh! the divil a one would ate mate on a Friday.



A prefatory note advises significantly that "The Songs in this Work are all Copyright, have been set to Music by the Author, and are published by J. Duff and Co. 65, Oxford Street."

A 6/8 tune ("If all the young maidens were blackbirds and trushes [sic]" without provenance, is No. 821 in George Petrie's (not Bunting's) collection. Petrie died in 1866. Despite my hasty remark above it is not "precisely" Kearney's melody, but it is quite similar from "Fiddler's Companion"):

X:1
T:If all the young maidens were blackbirds and thrushes
M:6/8
L:1/8
R:Air
N:"Moderate"
S:Stanford/Petrie (1905), No. 821
Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion
K:Emin
G/A/ | BEE E>GF/E/ | DEF/G/ AF :| G/A/ | Bed/d/ B^cd |
AA/B/A/G/ FDE/F/ | G2 F/E/ A2 G/A/ | BEE E2 ||




The Irish-American collector Francis O'Neill says the following in "Irish Folk Music" (Chicago, 1910):


"A delightful, though simple air, was that of a song in common circulation among the peasantry of W. Cork, fifty years ago. Each verse began with the hypothetical phrase—'If all the Young Maidens'—varying the situation ad finitum until the singer's muse was exhausted. In songs of this character every singer was privileged to extemporize, and no end of fun was possible under such unrestrained freedom. A few samples of the verses may not be found uninteresting to the general reader: —

If all the young maidens were blackbirds and thrushes,
If all the young maidens were blackbirds and thrushes;
How soon the young men would get sticks and beat bushes,
Fal the daw, fal the day, fal the didy o-dee.

If all the young maidens were swans on the water,
If all the young maidens were swans on the water;
How soon the young men would strip off and swim after,
Fal the daw, fal the day—etc., etc.

If all the young maidens were birds on the mountain,
If all the young maidens were birds on the mountain;
How soon the young men would get guns and go fowling,
Fal the daw, fal the day —etc., etc."


Seamus Ennis's different melody and stanza pattern:   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jDPmCJ42zE