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On the Road to Tipperary

[ Roud - ; trad.]

Steve Turner sang On the Road to Tipperary in 2018 on his Tradition Bearers CD Late Cut. He noted:

This rare Irish song lay among the mountain of songs jotted down on bits of paper that I have accumulated over the years and delve into every now and then to find new material. Sometimes you can’t see the potential of a song on first sight. This one was certainly an outstanding example as it took me about forty years of passing over it before I realised that it is one of the most powerful and hard-hitting songs about being thwarted in love. I forgot to make a note of which book I copied it from when I first wrote it down. So long ago that photocopiers were few and far between. I couldn’t find any information about this song on the Internet but I assume it comes from one of the ‘Ancient’ Irish ballad collections.

Lyrics

Steve Turner sings On the Road to Tipperary

On the road to Tipperary I met with my dearie,
Being tired and weary, with tears on her cheek.
She hastened to meet me, with kisses did greet me.
And shyly and sweetly, she ventured to speak.

My father agrees, and my mother you’ll please.
If you’ll stay at your ease, love, with me for your bride.
Take our farm and our garden, and you’ll gain the Queen’s pardon.
And myself you’ll be guardin’, whatever the tide.

My fond one, my fairest, of maiden’s the rarest,
’Tis you are my dearest, from you I’ll not go.
But I pledged this last quarter, though I never did court her,
To John Davis’s daughter, in the County Mayo.

Such ruin and shame to the end of love’s dream,
Never knowing the name I may give to my child.
There’s Donald Mulaney, ne’er blushed before any
To be found in Knockainey or abroad in the wild.

My grief and my ruin, that such passion and wooing
Should be my undoing, when I fell for your charms.
But now I lie weeping, in solitude keeping
While another lies sleeping each night in your arms.

How I wish, and woe is me, I was single and free,
When I sat on your knee love bloomed in my heart.
But you boast with a smile, that you’ve hundreds beguiled
And I never thought it vile till I fell like the rest.