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Galway Shawl (Susan Lawrence)
See also: The Galway Shawl (Ryan's Fancy)
And also: The Galway Shawl (Collected by MacEdward Leach)

Near Oranmore in the County Galway,
One pleasant evening in the month of May,
He spied a colleen, she looked so pretty,
She nearly stole his heart away.

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

They kept on walking, she kept on talking,
Till her father's cottage it came into view;
She said, "Come in, and meet my father,
And play for him a tune or two.

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

He played The Blackbird, The Stack of Barley,
The Old Bog Road, and The Foggy Dew;
She sang each note like an Irish linnet,
And the tears filled up her eyes of blue.

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

Early next morning, as he was leaving,
To take the road to old Donegal,
Sure his heart was breaking at the thought of leaving,
So he stayed with Eileen and her Galway shawl.

She wore no jewels, nor costly diamonds,
No paint nor powder, no, none at all;
She wore a bonnet with ribbons on it,
And 'round her shoulder was the Galway shawl.
And around her shoulder 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, Georgia, 1990) ....####

This variant recorded by Susan Lawrence of Upper Gullies, Conception Bay South, NL (Susan Lawrence, trk#8, 1990, produced by Wade Jones playing all instruments and Gus Burton of the Soirees, recorded at Rainbow Studio, St. John's, NL).

The above video features a photographic tour by Susan Lawrence of the set for the 2002 CBC Television mini-series Random Passage, based on the best selling novels Random Passage and Waiting For Time by Bernice Morgan. This four-part film follows a courageous woman's journey from servitude in England to the harsh life of Outport Newfoundland and was filmed almost entirely in New Bonaventure on the Northeast shore of Trinity Bay, NL.

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