THE GREEN FIELDS OF FERBANE John Doyle (Roud 17891)

(sung by Big John Maguire, Recorded by Keith Summers and Willie Clerkin in the Ulster Bar, Belturbet, Co Cavan, 3.8.80)

I curse the day that I sailed away
From my dear little Isle so green.
On a foreign strand where I now stand
And a deep sea rolls between.
My thoughts they fly to when I was a boy,
E'er my worldly cares began,
My vision shows where the Brosna flows
Round the green fields of Ferbane.

Now my heart does sink when I stop and think
Of the times that are no more.
When I used to stray from my way from school
Round the green fields of Kilmore.
My only quest was a wild bird's nest,
And that oak tree lordly stands.
I spent those hours in the leafy bowers
Round the green fields of Ferbane.

Now that good old town with its roofs of brown,
I spent many's the happy night.
When I rambled away with my comrades gay
'Til the morning dawned full bright.
Those lads I see, with their smiles of glee,
As the years they backward span;
There are three or four I'll see no more
Round the green fields of Ferbane.

Now the lust for gold it soon grows cold,
When the heart gets sad within.
Old memories prey, sure, I rue the day
It's errant that I've been.
I'll turn my face from this awful place
As quickly as I can,
And I'll sail for home never more to roam
From the green fields of Ferbane.

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/hardyson.htm
"This song's orignal title is The Green Fields Round Ferbane and it's a song from Co Offaly, hence the River Brosna reference, written by one John Doyle.

"Joanie McDermott of ITMA supplied us with a copy of a monograph written by Brendan Ryan, principal teacher at Ferbane National School, concerning John Mary Doyle (1896-1969) who composed The Green Fields Around Ferbane:

   'This poem was probably written in the 1940s. The content and metre are identical to an earlier poem, Lusmagh's Fields So Green. The Lusmagh poem was written in 1926[?or 1908?] by Edward Dolan and deals with a specific emigrant to Australia. We don't know of any factual background to John's work. It is probable that it was the Lusmagh poem that prompted John to pen the now more-famous poem. The air, based on an older melody, was put to it by John himself.'"