Girls of the Shamrock Shore
It being in the spring when the small birds sing
And the lambs do sport and play
I entered as a passenger
To New South
Wales sailed o'er
And I'll bid farewell to all that dwell
And the girls
of the Shamrock Shore
The ship that we set sail upon
The Speedwell
was her name
For full five months and longer
We sailed the foaming main
Neither land nor harbour could we see
Or the girls of the Shamrock Shore
On the fourteenth of September
We then did reach the land
We went
on shore at Sydney Cove
All chained hand to hand
My sentence is for fourteen
years
Farewell to the Shamrock Shore
Notes
Collected from Sally Sloane by John Meredith. She told Meredith that she learned it from her grandmother. See 'Botany Bay 2' in this collection for a related tune.
Searchable archives of Irish transports are now available on at The National Archives of Ireland