On the year of Our Lord eighteen hundred and six

We set sail from the port quay of Cork.

We were sailing away with a Cargo of bricks

For the grand City Hall of New York.

We'd a near-leaking craft, it was rigged fore and aft.

And how the trade winds drove her.

She had twenty-three masts and she stood several blasts,

And they called her the Irish Rover.



There was Bobby McGee from the banks of the Leith.

There was Hogan from county Tyrone.

There was John D. McGirk, who was scared stiff of work,

And a chap from Westmeath named Malone.

There was Slugger O'Toole, who was drunk as a rule,

And Fighting Bill Tracy from Dover,

And a man, Mick McCann, from the banks of the Bann

Was the skipper of the Irish Rover.



We had one million bags of the best Sligo rags,

We had two million barrels of pone.

We had three million bales of old nanny goats' tails,

We had four million barrels of bone.

We had five million hogs,

And six million dogs,

Seven million barrels of porter.

We had eight million sides of poor blind horses' hides

In the hold of the Irish Rover.



We had sailed seven years when the mizzens broke out

And the ship lost her way in the fog.

And that whale of a crew was reduced down to two.

Twas meself and the captain's old dog.

Well, the ship struck a rock, and Lord what a shock!

I nearly tumbled over.

Turned nine times around and the poor old dog was drowned

I'm the last of the Irish Rover