The Irish Rover

Irish Rover - The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem

And the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and six

We set sail from the port quay of Cork

And we were sailing away with a cargo of bricks

For the grand City Hall in New York

We'd a near-leaking craft she was rigged fore and aft

And how the trade winds drove her

She had twenty-three masts and she stood several blasts

And they called her the Irish Rover

And there was Bobby McGee from the banks of the Leith

There was Hogan from county Tyrone

And there was John D. McGirk who was scared stiff of work

And a chap from Westmeath named Malone

We had 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 of the Irish Rover

And 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 goats' tails

We had four million barrels of stone

And 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 the ship lost her way in the fog

And the whale of the crew was reduced down to two

'Twas meself and the captain's old dog

Then the ship hit a rock oh Lord what a shock

I nearly tumbled over

Turned nine times around and the poor old dog was drowned

I'm the last of the Irish Rover