The Moorlough Shore

"The Moorlough Shore" (Roud 2742) is a traditional Irish folk song.

Synopsis

A young man praises the beauties of the countryside and the girl he has fallen in love with. She refuses his advances on the ground that she already loves a sailor. She will wait for her true love for seven years. In frustration the boy leaves his childhood home and sails away, still praising the girl he loves that lives by the Moorlough Shore. The song is set in Strabane, and local names are sometimes mentioned. The songs is also known as "Moorlough Mary" or "As Harvest comes On".

Printed versions

The earliest version is a broadside in the Bodleian library, dated 1886. The song is discussed in the "Journal of the Irish folk Song Society" in 1905 and 1911. In the 1940s Helen Harkness found a version in Vermont.

There are versions by:
* "John McGettigan & his Irish Minstrels" on a single realeased in the 1930s in the USA
* Paddy Tunney on the album "Man of Songs" (1963)
* Peta Webb on the album "I Have Wandered in Exile" (1973)
* The Boys of the Lough on the album "Regrouped" (1980)
* Dolores Keane on the album "Lion in a Cage" (1989)
* Caroline Lavelle on the album "Spirit" (1995)
* Patrick Street on the album "Corner Boys" (1996)
* Susan McKeown on the album "Lowlands" (2000)
* Sinéad O'Connor on the album "Sean-Nós Nua" (2002)
* Emm Gryner on the album "Songs of Love and Death" (2005)
* The Corrs on the album "home" (2005)

The song "The Maid of Mourne Shore" tells a similar story.

External links

* [http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/folk-song-lyrics/Banks_of_the_Moorlough_Shore.htm Lyrics]
* [http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/HHH173.html Columbia State University notes]