| lyric | 1. In the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and six,
We set sail from the Coal Quay of Cork,
We were sailing away with a cargo of bricks,
For the grand city hall in New York.
We’d an elegant craft, it was rigged fore and aft,
And how the trade winds drove her;
She had twentythree masts and she stood sev’ral blasts.,
And they called her the Irish Rover.
2. There was Barney Magee from the banks of the Lee;
There was Hogan from County Tyrone.
There was Johnny McGurk, who was scared stiff of work,
And achap from Westmeath named Malone.
There was Slugger O’Toole, who was drunk as arule,
And fighting Bill Tracy from Dover;
And your man Mick McCann from the banks of the Bann,
Was the skipper on the Irish Rover.
We had one million bags of the best Sligo rags,
We had two million barrels of bones,
We had three million sides from old blind horse hides,
We had four million bags full of stones.
We had five million dogs and six million hogs,
And seven million bundles of clover.
We had eight million bales of old billy goat tails,
In the hold of the Irish Rover
Oh! we sailed seven years and the measles broke out,
And the ship lost her way in a fog,
And the whole of the crew was reduced unto two
Just meself and the skipper’s old dog.
And we struck on a rock with a terrible shock
And, Lord, she rolled right over.
Turned nine times right around; the old dog he got drowned
I’m the last of the Irish Rover.
Fare thee well, my own true one, I’m going far from you
And I will swear by the stars above, forever I’ll be true;
But as I part it will break my heart, and when the trip is over,
I’ll roam again in true Irish style aboard the Irish Rover. |