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I'll go down unto James Murray's house I'll have you to know,
For to learn his intention and to know when he would go;
Now go hurry yourselves 'long, me boys, and make no delay,
For you ought been here far long ago and you're now going away.
His mother she advised him with the tears in her eyes
That he stop until Monday, "Dear James, my dear boy,
Oh, stop until Monday, you'll have much better light,
For it looks wild and gloomy for you to put out tonight."
No advice would he take but on board went away,
They hoisted their main-sail and their anchors did weigh,
On the eighteenth of September, on Friday sailed away.
Oh, Saturday being the nineteenth so I've heard people say,
When a boat of James Murray's was seen in our bay;
With her sails double-reefed and her main-sail all tore,
She was seen on that hour and was never seen no more.
My name is James Farrell, my age twenty-two,
Last winter, dear mother, I spent home with you,
Last winter, dear mother, I spent in content
Till I sailed in the Shamrock, to the bottom she went.
There was a man in our bay, Thomas Ridgeley by name,
He has done a bad action though he's not to be blamed,
He has done a bad action though it wasn't through pride,
Not to pick up those two poor boys when they floated 'long side.
I owe him no malice nor I owe him no spite,
Ye people who scorn him 'twould serve him just right;
For what would their poor mothers give, for what would they crave,
'Twas the bodies of their children to be buried in their grave.
Collected in 1959 from George Decker of Rocky Harbour, NL, by Kenneth Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 3, pp.963-964, by the National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
Kenneth Peacock noted that Mr. Decker said this native ballad was old when he learned it in his youth, over sixty years ago, [pre-1900] and so there is no danger of reviving unpleasant memories among the principals of the story. In any event, it would be difficult to get 'clearance' from surviving relatives to use the song because no place-names are mentioned.
A variant was collected in 1951 from Mike Molloy of St. Shott's, NL, and published as Shamrock in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
MacEdward Leach also collected a variant in 1951 from Tom Ferrier of Trepassey, NL, and it was published as Torbay Song in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
According to the Northern Shipwrecks Database, the Shamrock was lost in a gale off Cape St. Mary's on September 19, 1846.
