The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #14865   Message #4036667
Posted By: GUEST,Julia L
28-Feb-20 - 10:12 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Irish Rover (various versions)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Irish Rover (various versions)
Just for the record here are the lyrics sung by David Kane in Searsport ME transcribed from his 1941 recording in the Flanders collection

THE IRISH ROVER   
David Kane of Searsport, Maine October 1941,
Helen Hartness Flanders Collection

In the year of our Lord fourteen hundred sixty six,
We set sail from the cove of Cork;
We were bound far away with a cargo of bricks,
?For the new city hall in New York.
We'd a beautiful craft, she was rigged fore and aft,
?And oh dear how the trade winds they drove her;
She could stand fearful blasts, She had seventeen masts
And we called her the Irish Rover.

There was Murphy and Flynn, and McCarthy and Gwinn
There was O'Malley, O'Brien and Shay
And McColley and McCoy and McKusker and Quinn
O'Connell, McGuinness, O'Day
There was Leary and Frye, Joyce, Mulcahey and I
McClough and O'Hara and Grover
And Fitzsimmons and Sly, both from near Athenry
In the crew of the Irish Rover.

We had one million bags of the best Sligo rags,
?We had two million boxes of stones;
?We had three million sides of old blind horses' hides,
?And four million boxes of bones.
We had five million hogs and six million dogs,
We had seven million tons of clover
?And eight million bales of white billy goat tails,
In the freight of the Irish Rover.

So we sailed seven years when the measles broke out,
The ship lost her way in a fog;
The whole of the crew was reduced down to two,
Just myself and the captain's old dog.
Then we struck Plymouth rock with a terrible shock!
?And then she rolled right over
She turned three times around, and we all got drowned
In the wreck of the Irish Rover.