It really doesn't matter who's asking or why, or who Mally/Molly is.

The moving effect of the two-stanza lyric comes from the sharp, perfectly balanced contrast between a childlike view of campaigning as an imagined source of delight, and a sober picture of battle as a real place of danger, violence, and death.

The tune is first cousin to that of Moore's "The Harp that Once through Tara's Halls" (usually identified as "Gramachree.")