Down by the Comeragh side

Down by the Comeragh side was composed in 1877 by John Sullivan of Cappanagrown. The song was written in honour of two neighbours shortly after their departure to America. The Comeragh River rises at Derriana lough and flows into Lough Currane. Many thanks are due to Padraig O’Connell of Cappanagrown, who is also a talented composer of song, and his daughter Selena, a beautiful singer who have collected and preserved the songs of their locality and made them available to the Binneas project.

Your feeling hearted Christians attention to my song,

It’s of a mournful relish I won’t delay you long,

Two of our gallant comrades who lately sailed away

They left their mature country to go across the sea.

With tears of lamentation I take my pen in hand

To write those feeling verses as you may understand

These two young men of noble birth I let you comprehend

Of honesty and modesty and modestly prove models to their friends.

The instruction of St Patrick they observed most diligently

With doleful hearts and mourning they left this country,

What can’t be cured must be endured just as the proverb runs,

And I anticipate that where ere they go they’ll prove St Patrick’s sons.

On the 27th of October in the year of seventy-seven,

Those two young men prepared to go at the hour of A.M seven,

They bid farewell of there parents who now for them do pine ,

And they left there homes and residence down by the Comeragh side.

On the day of their departure it would fill your heart with grief,

Multitude assembled they came in twos and threes,

For to convey the emigrants they did so very kind,

Broken hearts they did return from the bridge near Aoine side.

To be present at the multitude they bid us all good-bye,

It would make a heart of adamant for to lament and cry,

They looked around their fathers lands with tears in there eyes,

And they went the road their faces to show no more in Erin’s isle.

When they arrived in Killarney it was nine o’clock at night,

There they met their comrades who were bound for the voyage,

By one of the holy pastors their souls were sanctified,

  There friendship with the Lord they most graciously unite.

God help there humble parents, who nursed them tenderly,

For in there youth from them to part there face no more to see,

From them there is one comfort from that you can rely,

They left their native county without neither shame nor cry.

The names of those two young men I mean to let you know,

One of them was an orphan for the past ten years or so,

His mother nursed him kindly James Curran was his name,

The other a hearty young man whose name is John O’Shea.

Now to conclude and finish with much sincerity,

Long life attend those two young men like wise prosperity,

Now they are ploughing the ocean with many a rolling wave,

And hope the Lord will bring them safe unto their distant place.