Home

The Society

Robert Campbell

James Mac Cullagh

Past Events

Gallery

Miscellany

Gallery

Links

Location Map


E-mail us at:
info@glenellyhistorical.org.uk

Glashygolgan
Plumbridge
Co Tyrone
BT79 8DX

The Mountainy Farmer

A song sung in the Glenelly area for over a hundred years! Local people recall John McCullagh (Roddy) and Charlie Coyle, Sperrin having sung it in the past.

(May be sung to the tune of Dear Galway Bay)

I am a mountainy farmer
I was fated to work and toil
Through the rocks and through the mountains
To coax a living from the soil

A score or more long years ago
I was a useful man
Then my parents, they died suddenly
And I was left me the land.

My sisters emigrated
They left their native shore.
Since that day they went away
I've lived here all alone.

I have ten statute acres
The land that I can till
I've forty- five wee blackface ewes
That I graze on the hill

I have a horse, a cow or two
Some hens, but they are old
I have a nice wee collie dog
Far dearer to me than gold.

Now at the end of winter
When the spring is nearly due,
I plough the fields with one wee horse
I can't afford the two.

And when the crops are planted
The turf, I have to save
Sure times I forget to wash
Times, I forget to shave

But I am lonely here
I cannot get myself a wife
For no woman wants to share
A mountainy farmer's life

My whole life's one of misery
Hard work and little gain
My legs are bent with climbing hills
My shoulders wracked with pain

Sure I'll say good bye to the mountains
To the rocks, and to the whins
Sure I'll make no fuss, I'll get the bus
And I'll go to the Nazereth Nuns!