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On the banks of the roses, my love and I sat down

And I took out my violin to play my love a tune

In the middle of the tune, O she sighed and she said

O Johnny, lovely Johnny, Would you leave me



O when I was a young man, I heard my father say

That he'd rather see me dead and buried in the clay

Sooner than be married to any runaway

By the lovely sweet banks of the roses



O then I am no runaway and soon I'll let them know

I can take a good glass or leave it alone

And the man that doesn't like me, he can keep

his daughter home

And young Johnny will go roving with another



And if ever I get married, twill be in the month of May

When the leaves they are green and the meadows

they are gay

And I and my true love can sit and sport and play

On the lovely sweet banks of the roses

O, Father dear, I often hear you speak of Erin's Isle,

Her lofty scenes, and valleys green, her mountains rude and wild;

They say it is a lovely land wherein a prince might dwell,

Oh why did you abandon it, the reason to me tell?



Oh son, I loved my native land with energy and pride

Till’ a blight came oer’ my fields and crops my sheep and cattle died,

My rent and taxes were to pay, I could not them redeem,

And that's the cruel reason why I left Old Skibbereen.



Oh well do I remember that bleak December day,

The landlord and the sheriff came to drive us all away;

They set my roof on fire with their cursed English spleen

And that's another reason why I left Old Skibbereen.



Oh well do I remember the year of forty eight

When I rose with Comrades fierce and true to battle for our fate

I was hunted through the hills by slaves, who served a foreign Queen





And you were only two years old and feeble was your frame

I could not leave you with my friends you bore your father’s name

I wrapped you in my cota mor in the dead of night unseen

I heaved a sigh and I bade goodbye to old Skibbereen



Oh father dear, the day will come when vengeance loud will call

When each Irish man with feeling strong will rally one and all,

I'll be the man to lead the van, beneath the flag of green,

And loud and high we'll raise the cry," Revenge for Skibbereen!"



Additional verse (not recorded)



Your mother, too, God rest her soul, fell on the snowy ground,

She fainted in her anguish of the desolation round.

She never rose, but passed away from life to mortal dream,

And that's another reason why I left Old Skibbereen.