Wexford Girl- Walter Church (CAN) c.1900 Hamer
[My title. From Garners Gay, EFDS Publications, 1967, p.40. Mudcat notes follow. This is an Irish-Canadian version learned by an Englishman. It's closer the US versions than the UK versions. I will also list it under versions from North America.
R. Matteson 2016]
Walter Church emigrated briefly to Canada around the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, and learned enough songs from Irish friends there to earn the nickname "Paddy" when he returned to England. This particularly savage Irish localization of the older, English song, became widely popular in America, alongside other versions directly descended from English sources.
THE WEXFORD GIRL- Noted by Fred Hamer from Walter "Paddy" Church of Bedfordshire; learned in Canada about 1900 from Irish emigrants.
'Twas in the town of Idalo where I did live and dwell,
'Twas in the town of Wexford I owned a flour mill,
There I fell in love with a Wexford girl with a dark and rolling eye,
And I asked her if she'd come with me and along with me comply.
She asked me out to take a walk and to name the wedding day,
And we walked along quite easily as all young lovers may,
And anyone who saw her said she'd make a pretty bride,
For any lord or nobleman or anyone beside.
But I plucked a stake from out the fence and I struck that fair girl down,
And there I had my will of her all on the level ground,
I knocked her to her bended knee, for mercy she did cry,
Oh Willie dear don't murder me for I'm not prepared to die.
I took her by the curly locks and I dragged her o'er the ground,
I dragged her to the river that runs through Wexford town,
Then I heeded not a word she said, but I still beat more and more,
Till the ground all around me was in a bloody gore.
Lie there, lie there you Wexford girl, you'll never be my bride,
Lie there, lie there you Wexford girl to me you'll never be tied,
You thought that you would marry me when I wished to be free,
You thought that you would marry me, but that can never be.
I went back to my mother's house about twelve o'clock at night,
My mother she'd been waiting up and she got a terrible fright,
Oh son, dear son, what have you done, your bleeding hands and clothes,
And the answer that I thought best to give was bleeding at the nose.
I ask-ed for a candle to light me into bed,
Likewise for a handkerchief to bind around my head,
I twisted and I turned about, no comfort could I find,
For a flame of fire shone round me and she lay close behind.
They took me on suspicion, they dragged me down to jail,
There was no one there to plead my cause, no one to go my bail,
Her sister swore my life away without either fear or doubt,
She swore I was the young man that led her sister out.
Now all you gay young fellows wherever you may be,
Never spite your own true love with any cruelty,
For if you do you'll surely rue until the day you die,
You will hang just like this murderer upon the gallows high.