"Pat O'Brien" - The Sligo Murder Ballad

Cathy Jordan - Vocals, Guitars, Keyboard,
Slow Moving Clouds - Strings
- Kevin Murphy - Cello
- Ultan O’Brien - Fiddle
- Aki - Nyckelharpa

Illustration & Video - Peter Crann
Nancy's Hand - Laura Karhunen

Arranged by Cathy Jordan
String Arrangement - Slow Moving Clouds

Recorded remotely
Mixed at the Magic Room Studios Sligo
Engineered by Brian McDonagh

This song comes from the the broadside ballad tradition of the 19th century and is a song of betrayal, murder and the supernatural. Pat O’Brien lures Nancy into a shady grove where he murders her, but she comes back from the dead to seek revenge.

This version I learned from the singing of Tom Lenihan from Miltown Malbay County Clare.

Thanks to The Arts Council of Ireland for their support in producing this video.

Lyrics

This young man’s name was Pat O’Brien a carpenter by trade
Both day and night he took delight in courting this fair maid
She was young and innocent and always to the fore,
But little was her notion that he’d prove her overthrow.

She wrote to him a letter and an answer to it came
Saying ‘Nancy, lovely Nancy, I hope you’ll not me blame
For I’ve been working all this time and could not see you o’er
Bot I hope to have your company this evening at the grove’.

When she read those few lines they enticed her for to go
She dressed herself in private, I mean you for to know
The night was bright with the moonlight which caused her for to go
But little was her notion, she’d never come back home

When he saw her coming, it was then he went to hide
The words he said unto himself, ‘You’ll never be my bride
For I have heard for certain that you have me deceived
And this very night I’ll take your life, a butcher I will be’.

It was then he stepped up to her and then his colour changed.
She said ‘Patsy, lovely Patsy, what makes you look so pale?’
I want no talk at all from you, just kneel down there and pray
For there’s not a woman breathing will ever deceive me.

He caught her by the yellow lock and drew her to the ground.
;Twas with a knife he stabbed her oh, and gave her a deadly wound
Her last dying words ‘Pat O’Brien you do not feel my pain.
And twas with a spade he dug her grave and then dashed out her brains.

This girl was 3 days buried to her mother she did appear,
The mother spoke to her without any dread or fear
She says ‘mother loving mother you’ll never see me more
For Pat O’Brien has murdered me and laid me in my gore

‘Go down to that old grove be sure make no delay,
There you’ll find my body buried, and covered with the clay
You’ll find the blood spilled on the spot, the place he murdered me.
Go down and get him taken and hung he’ll surely be.

The night before his trial came on to him she did appear
With her baby in her arms, oh which filled her heart with fear.
She said “often times you told me that I would be your bride
On the gallows high you now will die for taking away my life.