The Girls In Old Ireland

	  		
D 
Well the Girls in Old Ireland they come to me  
                               A 
Bloody shillelagh clubs for to set me free  
Bm  
I said my lady’s fair won’t you listen to me  
          G                D 
And I’ll bring you to your bonnie lass. 
   D 
In fifty-two the hunger took us by surprise  
                            A 
Water fell into my mother’s crying eyes  
   Bm  
We wailed just like the doves in the morning cries  
        G                  D 
And the crops were sick in harvest time.  

       D 
But my mother she was wise and she raised me well  
                                      A 
She told me all the things that there was to tell  
Bm  
Precious you sure listen cause you need me now  
       G               D 
In the years to come I won’t be there. 
     D 
Just take a hard shillelagh in your hands so strong  
                                A 
Always hold it gently when they do you wrong  
    Bm  
But when you hear John Henry’s solemn hammer song  
    G                      D 
God give you strength like turpentine.  

    D 
And darling you’re a peach tree in the summer sun  
                                   A 
With bonnie little branches always on the run  
         Bm  
And when cold winds shake your branches like a crooked gun  
G                D 
I’ll be there my cherub son. 
       D 
Like a mockingbird who laughs because there’s someone there  
                                A 
To wonder if they ever would discover where  
     Bm  
He's hiding in the trees without a worried care  
G                 D 
Streetcars in the alleyway.  

         D 
Well the Girls in Old Ireland they come to me  
                                          A 
Let their bloody kings and clubs be their melodies 
  Bm  
A whiskey-fog still burning in my memory  
G              D 
Scattered all along the grass.