The Galway Shawl

At Oranmore in the county Galway,
One pleasant evening in the month of May;
I spied a damsel, she was young and handsome,
Her beauty fairly took my breath away.

She wore no jewels, nor costly diamonds,
No paint nor powder, no, none at all;
But she wore a bonnet with ribbons on it,
And around her shoulders was the Galway shawl.

We kept on walking, she kept on talking,
Till her father's cottage came into view;
Said she: "Come in, sir, and meet my father,
And play, to please him, The Foggy Dew."

She sat me down beside the hearthstone,
I could see her father, he was six feet tall;
And soon her mother had the kettle singing,
All I could think of was the Galway shawl.

She wore no jewels, nor costly diamonds,
No paint nor powder, no, none at all;
But she wore a bonnet with ribbons on it,
And around her shoulders was the Galway shawl.

I played The Black Bird, The Stack of Barley,
Rodney's Glory and The Foggy Dew;
She sang each note like an Irish linnet,
And tears welled in her eyes of blue.

'Twas early, early all in the morning,
I hit the road for old Donegal;
Said she, "Goodbye, sir." She cried and kissed me,
But my heart remains with the Galway shawl.

She wore no jewels, nor costly diamonds,
No paint nor powder, no, none at all;
But she wore a bonnet with ribbons on it,
And around her shoulders was the Galway shawl.

####.... Author unknown. Variant of The Galway Shawl, collected in Northern Ireland in 1928 by Sam Henry (1878-1952) and published as #H652, on p.269 in Sam Henry's Songs Of The People, edited, transcribed, and annotated by E. Gale Huntingdon (1901-1993); revised with additions and indices by Lani Herrmann (University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA, 1990) ....####

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