Notes from The Housing Songbook:

The experience of returning home for immigrants could be bitter in the extreme, especially so in 19th century Ireland. In the following song the native son learns that while he was gone, his widowed mother was evicted and had died in the poorhouse. In his rage the young man avenges his mother's death by murdering her former landlord and he then flees Ireland to lead the life of a wandering exile.


LANDLORDS OF IRELAND, YE

(Source: Irish-American named Wild, late 19th century
In Folksongs of Australia
Adapted by Charles Ipcar in 1981
Tune: traditional "The Range of the Buffalo")


I went unto America, that sweet land of the free,
But returning in a few short years this news the priest told me,
Me mother'd been evicted and it caused me heart to mourn,
For she had in the poorhouse died in those years while I was gone.

Then a fearful venom seized me and with me right hand raised on high,
I swore by me creator, her landlord he must die;
The night was dark and stormy when I rode to where he dwelled,
The pistol drew, that tyrant slew, and I sent his soul to Hell!

That turned me to a wanderer, that caused me for to roam,
Far from me native Ireland, far from me mother's home;
When that day of judgment comes, when all our race is run,
May God forgive the venom shown by this poor widow's son.

So, ye landlords of Ireland, no matter where ye be,
When you meet your fate as he did then old Ireland will be free;
The American lands are helping, with their eagle's golden wings,
But the harp of dear old Ireland is a mass of broken strings.

Anyone else run across more information on this old ballad?

Cordially,
Landlady's Daughter, not to be confused with Charley Noble