Answer to the Irish Emigrant

It is just over a week until the Yass Irish and Celtic music festival! I hope you can join us here in Yass, 15-17 September.

Festival details here:
https://www.facebook.com/jointhecraicinyass

I went looking in the archives and found this song from around 1859. It must have been written contemporary to the Great Hunger; the famine cause by the British and suffered by millions of Irish:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

There are three versions of the ballad in the Bodleian archives:
http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/search/roud/13855

The tune is my own, as I don't think there are other recordings of this song.

The ballad that this song responds to could be as much as 20 years earlier, possibly before the start of the famine:
http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/search/roud/2661

There is a recording of this ballad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3nJcRE5gJk

Purchase my music:
Bandcamp: https://ozfolklounge.bandcamp.com/

#Ireland