Story Behind the Song
In the 1500-1900's, Irish, Scot, Welsh, and English peoples learn the hard and often-wicked ways of British mercantilism as their homes, farms, and way of life are taken from them, often by trickery and deceit, or by farm consolidation acts. Little is left for the young men but to sign on in his Majesty's service, leaving their roots to sail or soldier in faraway lands like Canada.
One cunning recruitment practice had a British officer, unbeknownst to those at hand, drop a half-pence in the bottom of a young man's glass of ale. If he should take it and spend it on the next beverage, which he was encouraged to do, he would then be accounted and considered recruited, by law, as of that moment.
Lyrics
When I saw Blind Mary, t'was nothing I could say
On the cliffs of Bantry Bay
But she smiled at me, her treasures for to see
Now I must be on my way.
Captain Shea is calling, the bugle beckons me
to the barge in Bantry Bay
And I'll sail from here, to the hills of Calgary
From my home, far and away.
For you see, Blind Mary, forever she will stay
On the cliffs of Bantry Bay
She will wait for you, forever it will be
And she'll live in your mem'ry.
© words and music by John Spearn
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