how sweet the sound ..

Ewan MacColl (Folk Songs and Ballads of Scotland) maintains that the name Dainty Davie refers to the Reverend David Williamson, who died in 1706. It seems, says MacColl, that the Reverend was the subject of an unauthenticated incident related by Dean Swift. Williamson found himself pursued by dragoons, the story goes, and while sensibly fleeing he found refuge in the bed of the daughter of the Laird of Cherrytrees. Hiding was apparently not the only act he engaged in while so occupied, but afterward he married the lass. A variant of the story has it that the young miss (from whose voice the song is told) disguised the Reverend in her clothing, tweaking him a bit by calling him 'dainty' Davie.

As I was walking

Near Bainbridge town in the County Down

One morning in last July

Down a boreen green came a sweet colleen

And she smiled as she passed me by

From Banrty Bay up to Derry Quay

From Galway to Dublin Town

No maid I've seen like the brown colleen

That I met in the County Down

She looked so sweet from her bare two feet

to the sheen of her nut brown hair

a coaxing elf and I shook myself

for to she she was really there

From Banrty Bay up to Derry Quay

From Galway to Dublin Town

No maid I've seen like the brown colleen

That I met in the County Down

The onward sped and I truned my head

And I looked with a feeling rare

I said says I to a passer by

"Who's the maid with the nut brown hair?"

He smiled at me and he said, said he

"She's the gem of Ireland's crown.

Rosie McCann From the banks of the Bann

She's the Star of the County Down!"

From Banrty Bay up to Derry Quay

From Galway to Dublin Town

No maid I've seen like the brown colleen

That I met in the County Down

The harvest fair she'll be surely there

So I'll dress in my Sunday clothes

With my shoes shone bright and my hat cocked right

And a smile for my nut brown rose

No pipe I'll smoke, no horse I'll yoke

till my plow is a rust colored brown

And a smiling bride by my own fireside

Sits the Star of the County Down

From Banrty Bay up to Derry Quay

From Galway to Dublin Town

No maid I've seen like the brown colleen

That I met in the County Down

As we gather in the chapel, here in old Kilmainham Gaol,

I think about these past few weeks, or will they say we failed?

From our school days, they have told us we must yearn for liberty

Yet all I want in this dark place is to have you here with me.

Oh Grace, just hold me in your arms and let this moment linger

They'll take me out at dawn and I will die

With all my love, I'll place this wedding ring upon your finger,

There won't be time to share our love, for we must say goodbye

Now I know it's hard for you my love to ever understand

The love I bear for these brave men, my love for this dear land

But when Padraic called me to his side, down in the G.P.O.

I had to leave my own sick bed, to him I had to go.

Oh Grace, just hold me in your arms and let this moment linger

They'll take me out at dawn and I will die

With all my love, I'll place this wedding ring upon your finger,

There won't be time to share our love, for we must say goodbye

Now as the dawn is breaking, my heart is breaking too

On this May morn as I walk out, my thoughts will be of you

And I'll write some words upon the wall so everyone will know

I loved so much that I could see His Blood Upon The Rose

Oh Grace, just hold me in your arms and let this moment linger

They'll take me out at dawn now I must die

With all my love, I'll place this wedding ring upon your finger,

There won't be time to share our love, for we must say goodbye

Oh there won't be time to share our love, for we must say goodbye

Missouri, she's a mighty river.

Away you rolling river.

The redskins' camp, lies on its borders.

Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.

The white man loved the Indian maiden,

Away you rolling river

With notions[b] his canoe was laden.

Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.

"O, Shenandoah, I love your daughter,

Away you rolling river.

I'll take her 'cross yon rolling water."

Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.

The chief disdained the trader's dollars:

Away you rolling river.

"My daughter never you shall follow."

Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.

At last there came a Yankee skipper.

Away you rolling river.

He winked his eye, and he tipped his flipper.

Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.

He sold the chief that fire-water,

Away you rolling river.

And 'cross the river he stole his daughter.

Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.

"O, Shenandoah, I long to hear you,

Away you rolling river.

Across that wide and rolling river."

Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.

The Battle of Prestonpans, also known as the Battle of Gladsmuir, was fought on 21 September 1745, near Prestonpans, in East Lothian, the first significant engagement of the Jacobite rising of 1745.

Jacobite forces, led by the Stuart exile Charles Edward Stuart, defeated a government army under Sir John Cope, whose inexperienced troops broke in the face of a Highland charge. The battle lasted less than thirty minutes, was a huge boost to Jacobite morale and established the revolt as a serious threat to the British government.

In Moore street where I did dwell

A butcher boy, I loved right well

He courted me, my life away

But now with me, he will not stay

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain

I wish I was a maid again

A maid again I ne'er will be

'Til cherries grow on an apple tree

I wish my baby it was born

And smiling on its daddy's knee

And me poor girl to be dead and gone

With the long green grass growing over me

She went upstairs to go to bed

And calling to her mother said

"Give me a chair 'til I sit down

And a pen and ink 'til I write down"

At every word she dropped a tear

And at every line cried "Willie dear

Oh, what a foolish girl was I

To be led astray by a butcher boy"

He went upstairs and the door he broke

He found her hanging from a rope

He took his knife and he cut her down

And in her pocket, these words he found

Oh, make my grave large, wide and deep

Put a marble stone at my head and feet

And in the middle, a turtle dove

That the world may know, that I died for love

26 MAY 1315

EDWARD

14 OCT 1318

BRUCE 700

On 26 May 1315, Edward Bruce landed near Larne with a 6,000 strong Scottish army. A year earlier,

his elder brother, Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, had defeated the Anglo-Normans at the

Battle of Bannockburn in Scotland. Their relatives, the O'Neills of Ulster, invited Robert and Edward

to cross the narrow sea to forge an alliance and achieve the same in Ireland.

With the support of local chiefs, Edward Bruce was crowned King of Ireland at Carrickfergus and quickly

took control of Ulster. The town served as Bruce's headquarters throughout his three and a half year

campaign. When the Anglo-Normans surrendered Carrickfergus Castle to the Scots, King Robert brought

reinforcements from Scotland and the brothers marched south. The campaign ended in defeat when

Edward was killed at the Battle of Faughart, near Dundalk, on 14 October 1318.

CARRICKFERGUS CASTLE

EDWARD BRUCE'S SIEGE - THE ARRIVAL OF ROBERT BRUCE

When the Scottish army arrived in May 1315, they took the town of Carrickfergus and besieged the castle,

then the stronghold of Anglo-Norman Ulster. After almost a year, the Anglo-Normans used an Easter truce to launch

a surprise breakout from the castle. In the bloody street battle which followed, many knights were killed, including

Anglo-Norman leader Sir Thomas Mandeville and Scottish commander Neil Fleming. The Anglo-Normans

surrendered the castle to Edward Bruce in September 1316. Soon afterwards, King Robert arrived from Scotland

with fresh troops to begin the next phase of the campaign - an attempt to take control of the whole of Ireland.

The Arran Boat returning to Ardrossan