In the county Roscommon we’ve hailstones and rain.
And I was crossing the fields on me way to the plain.
I met a fair cailín, says she, ‘Do you know,
The shortest of shortcuts into old Ballymoe?’

Says I , ‘Cailín óg, who led you astray?
I think I’ll go with you, and show you the way.’
Says she, ‘I won’t go with you, for you I don’t know,
You might kiss me between here and old Ballymoe.’

Says I, ‘Cailín óg, I’ve seldom been kissed.’
She says, ‘Poor lad, sure a lot you have missed.’
‘But I am willing to learn, you know,
We can practice between here and old Ballymoe.’

‘You think I’d go with you, you moron, garrough.
I don’t like your looks, and your smoothering blows.
You are young, you are handsome, but God knows you’re slow.
You look like a dead one in old Ballymoe.’

Says he, ‘I’ve been noted for strength and good looks.
My brain’s not so bad, when I master the books.
And if you are willing, ‘tis married we’ll go,
And forever live happy, in old Ballymoe.’

She started to laugh, till I thought she would choke.
She says, ‘Poor lad, I will tell you a joke:
Get out of my way, for now I must go,
I’ve a husband and six kids in old Ballymoe!’

"This was first issued on a gramophone record sung by ‘The McNulty Family’ in the early 1940s. According to traditional music archivist Nicholas Carolan it was possibly written by Mrs Ann McNulty of the renowned McNulty Family, though he says there is no firm evidence for this."
Jim Carroll

See also
Ballymoe sung by Peggy McMahon