The lyrics below are copied from the LP insert in the Triona LP. The lyrics in that insert are not always reliable, but I didn't check this song. I have two other versions, one on the LP 'The White Rock' and the other on one of the twenty CDs of the Voice of the People series.

Wolfgang

KITTY FROM BALLINAMORE

Oh, when I was young and full of fun like many's a dashing blade
My own delight from morn' to night was to court a comely maid.
I'd walk with her and talk with her as thousands have done before,
Oh, but it's little I knew she would prove untrue, wee Kitty from Ballinamore.

Young Kitty was tall and handsome and gentle as a dove.
Ten times a day she used to say with me she was in love,
Oh, when she'd say this I'd have a kiss I would love her more and more
For without a lie I would then die for Kitty from Ballinamore.

Oh it was her parents I must blame to leave her in such a state,
Although I was poor they couldn't endure for to court their daughter Kate.
Although I loved her dearly and told them o'er and o'er
For without a lie I would then die for Kitty from Ballinamore.

Well indeed my love says Kitty I'd rather be a soldier's wife,
To dress myself in man's attire go fight for all my life.
So the very next day he sailed away and joined the foreign force
For without a lie he would then die for Kitty from Ballinamore.

But I was not very long listed when a letter I did receive,
And when I read the answer I thought I'd get some ease,
But the very first line that I did read, it grieved my heart full sore
For young Kitty was wed to a farmer's son in the town of Ballinamore.

So come all you pretty fair young men a warning take by me,
Don't fall in love with every wee girl that you see,
For they'll tell you this and they'll tell you that and they do like they'll done before,
They will curl their hair and leave ye there like Kitty from Ballinamore.

From the notes on the record sheet: Another lovesong that doesn't quite end as it should.
Seamus Ennis recorded a version of this song some years ago in Loughanure...He believes the 'Ballinamore' of the song to be a substitution for Baltimore in Co. Cork. Whenever she lived, young Kitty and her flirting left a moral in song to us.