Henry's Songbook

Chorus :
So goodbye Muirsheen Durkin I´m sick and tired of workin´
No more I´ll dig the praties no longer I´ll be fooled
As sure as my name is Carney I´ll go off to Californy
Where instead of digging praties I´ll be digging lumps of gold

1. In the days I went a-courtin´ I was never tired resortin´
   To an alehouse or a playhouse or many´s a house beside
   I told my brother Seamus I´d go off and go right famous
   And before I´d return again I´d roam the world wide
   Chorus -----

2. I´ve courted girls in Blarney in Kanturk and in Killarney
   In Passage and in Queenstown that is the Cobh of Cork
   Goodbye to all this pleasure for I´m going to take my leisure
   And the next time you will hear from me will be a letter from New York
   Chorus -----

3. Goodbye to all the girls at home I´m sailing far across the foam
   To try and make me fortune in far Americay
   There´s gold and money plenty for the poor and for the gentry
   And when I´ll come back again I never more will stray.
   Chorus -----

(Words & music Trad / Colm O Lochlainn)
As sung by Sean / Schlagsaite

  [1965:] This air is sung in Connemara to Peigin Leitir Mor. I learnt the last verse in childhood and 'invented' the other two, finding nothing else but a fragment 'And now to end my story I'll marry Queen Victorey'. See B. Breatnach's 'Ceol Rince' where it is named Cailini Deasa Mhuigheo. (O Lochlainn II, 208)

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