Traditional

"The Bard of Armagh" is an Irish ballad. It is often attributed to Patrick Donnelly. He was made Bishop of Dromore in 1697, the same year as the enactment of the Bishops Banishment Act. Donnelly is believed to have taken the name of the travelling harper Phelim Brady.

The English Lyrics read:

O list to the lay of a poor Irish harper
And scorn not the strains of his near withered hand
But remember his fingers could once toil more sharper
To raise up the memories of his dear native land.

At the fair or the wake I could twist my shillelagh
Or trip through a jig in my brogues bound with straw
And all the pretty fair maids from village and valley
Loved their bold Phelim Brady the Bard of Armagh.

It was long before the shamrock our dear native emblem
Was crushed in its beauty by the Saxon’s lions paw
And all the pretty colleens around me assembled
Loved their bold Phelim Brady the Bard of Armagh.

O how I long to muse on the days of my boyhood
Though four score and two years have flitted since then
But it brings sweet reflections as every young joy should
For the merry hearted boys make the best of old men.

And when Sergeant Death in his cold arms shall embrace me
And lull me to sleep with sweet Erin go Brath
By the side of my Kathleen, my young wife then place me
And forget Phelim Brady The Bard of Armagh.

The song itself, like many heroic, rebel outlaw ballads, dates from the mid 19th century, when it was printed as a broadside ballad in Dublin.