Irish Rover

In the year of our Lord eighteenhundred-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 twenty-three masts, and she stood sev’ral blasts,
and they called her the Irish Rover.

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 a chap from Westmeath named Malone.
There was Slugger O’Toole, who was drunk as a rule,
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 bone;
we had three million bales of old nanny goat’s tails,
we had four million barrels of stone.
We had five million hogs and six million dogs,
and seven million barrels of porter;
we had eight million sides of old blind horses‘ hides
in the hold of the Irish Rover.

We had sailed seven years when the measles broke out,
and our ship lost her way in a fog.
And the hole of the crew was reduced down to two;
t’was myself and the captain’s old dog.
Then the sip struck a rock – O Lord, what a shock! –
and nearly tumbled over;
turned nine times around, then the poor old dog was drowned.
I’m the last of the Irish Rover.

trad.