Annotation:Accursed Kerryman, The

The melody appears in Edward Bunting's second collection of Irish tunes (1809). Ó Canainn (1978) bemoans antiquarian P.W. Joyce's cavalier treatment of the text of this famous song in the latter's Ancient Irish Music (1875) wherein he writes:

Of the Irish song I retain only a few fragments, which are not worth preserving. Perhaps the reader will be better pleased if I give instead a song of my brother's, composed to suit the air.