Hi,

I've tried to transcribe this version and can't make out the city [footnote 1] or the next to last line [footnote 2]. There might be a few errors.

Anyone hear it? Here's a link: http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/play/93277;jsessionid=B12F5C417433CA281CFD69A1EA2A0812

The Wexford Girl- sung by Ethel Findlater of Birsay and Harray, Orkney. Recorded by Elizabeth Neilsen, also Alan Bruford. Ethel Findlater learned this song from her mother many years before.

1. Twas in the town of Leebough[1]
Where I was bred and born
And in the town of Wexford
I owned a foundry mill.

2. I courted there a Wexford girl
With a dark and rolling eye,
I asked that girl to marry me
And with me I [she] could lie.

3. I went unto her mother's house
Bein' eight o'clock at night,
I asked my love to take a walk,
A wedding day I'll find.

4. We walked along quite easily
Till we came to meadow's ground,
I pulled a stake from off the fence
And I boldly knocked her down.

5. She fell upon her bended
For mercy she did cry,
"Oh Willie my dear don't kill me here,
For I'm not prepared to die."

6. I heeded not a word she said,
But hit her all the more,
And all about and all around
Lay in the bloody gore.

7. I took her by the yellow knot
And dragged her on the ground.
And through her in the river
That flows through Wexford town.

8. I was taken upon suspicion
And march-ed into jail,
With no one to pity me,
And no one to go my bail.

9. I went into my mother's house
Bein' twelve o'clock at night,
My mother who was sitting up,
Brought in a candle light.

10. "Oh Willie my son what hast thy done,
Such blood on yer hands and clothes."
The answer I thought best to give,
"Was a bleeding at the nose."

11. I asked her for a candle,
To light me off to bed.
I asked her handkerchief
To tie about my head,

12. I tumbled and I tossed about,
No comfort could I find,
The flames of hell surround me,
And she lay close behind.

13. O ye young men O fear my fate,
A warning take by me,
And do not treat the girl you like,
With any cruelty.

14 For if you do you're sure to rue,
Until the day you dee
And when they come for me at last[2],
And hang from the gallows tree.

Richie