ely ballads, sung and composed by
the people, and, as far as I know, not hitherto translated.

Those I have heard since I have begun to look for them in the cottages,
are, for the most part, sad; but not long ago I heard a girl sing a
merry one, in a mocking tone, about a boy on the mountain, who neglected
the girls of his village to run after a strange girl from Galway; and
the girls of the village were vexed, and they made a song about him; and
he went to Galway after her, and there she laughed at him, and said he
had never gone to school or to the priest, and she would have nothing to
do with him. So then he went back to the village, and asked the smith's
daughter to marry him; but she said she would not, and that he might go
back to the strange girl from Galway. Another song I have heard was a
lament over a boy and girl who had run away to America, and on the way
the ship went down. And when they were going down, they began to be
sorry they were not married; and to say that if the priest had been at
home when they went away, they would have been married; but they hoped
that when they were drowned, it would be the same with them as if they
were married. And I heard another lament that had been made for three
boys that had lately been drowned in Galway Bay. It is the mother who is
making it; and she tells how she lost her husband, the father of her
three boys. And then she married again, and they went to sea and were
drowned; and she wouldn't mind about the others so much, but it is the
eldest boy, Peter, she is grieving for. And I have heard one song that
had a great many verses, and was about 'a poet that is dying, and he
confessing his sins.'

The first ballad I give deals with sorrow and defeat and death; for
sorrow is never far from song in Ireland; and the names best praised and
kept in memory are of those--

'Lonely antagonists of destiny
That went down scornful under many spears;
Who soon as we are born are straight our friends,
And live in simple music, country songs,
And mournful ballads by the winter fire.'

In this simple lament, the type of a great many, only the first name of
the young man it was made for is given: 'Fair-haired Donough.' It is
likely the people of his own place know still to what family he
belonged; but I have not heard it sung, and only know that he was 'some
Connachtman that was hanged in Galway.' And it is clear it was for some
political crime he was hanged, b