Moorlough Shore Lyrics
by The CorrsMusic Video
Moorlough Shore
Your hills and dales and flowery vales
That lie near the Moorlough Shore.
Your vines that blow by Borden's grove.
Will I ever see you more
Where the primrose glows
And the violet grows
Where the trout and salmon play.
With my line and hook delight I took
To spend my youthful days.
Last night I went to see my love,
To hear what she might say.
To see if she'd take pity on me,
Lest I might go away.
She said, "I loved an Irish lad,
And he was my only joy,
And ever since I saw his face
I have loved that soldier boy."
[Instrumental]
Perhaps your soldier lad is lost
Sailing over the sea of Maine.
Or perhaps he's gone with some other one
You may never see him again.
Well if my Irish lad is lost,
He's the one I do adore,
And seven years I'll wait for him
By the banks of the Moorlough Shore...
[Traditional verse omitted by the artist:]
Farewell to Sinclaire's castle ground.
Farewell to the foggy hill.
Where the linen wefts like bleaching silk
And the bulging stream runs still
Near there I spent my youthful days
But alas, they are no more
For cruelty has banished me
Far away from the Moorlough Shore
Song Details
🎶 Music & Lyrics: Traditional Irish Air
🎼 Alternate Titles & Related Melodies: This traditional air appears throughout Irish song tradition under many different titles and lyrical variations, including:- The Maid of Mourne Shore
- Moorlough Mary
- Banks of the Moorlough Shore
- An Traigh Múghdhorna
- The Foggy Dew (air variant)
- The Maids Of The Mountain Shore
- Down by the Salley Gardens (Yeats used a version of this melody)
- Gort Na Saileán
- As Harvest Comes On
📝 Song Brief:
The song is about a young man who falls in love with a woman but she refuses his advances - she is in love with a sailor boy and will await seven years for his return. In frustration he eventually leaves his childhood home but will never forget the girl he loved by the banks of the Moorlough Shore.
The song is set in Straban, a town in West Tyrone, Northern Ireland, where names and places along the River Mourne a tributary of the River Foyle) are also mentioned... Borden's grove, Sinclaire's castle ground, Holly Hill, etc.
📖 Glossary:- Moorlough — a quiet upland lake route in the Strabane countryside.
- weft — the cross‑threads in woven fabric; used poetically to describe a garment or textile.
- Sea of Maine — a large gulf of the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of North America.
- foggy hill — refers to Holyhill (pronounced Holly Hill), a Sinclair estate in the parish of Leckpatrick, near Moorlough Road.
The following is an excerpt from SinclairGenealogy.info in relation to the song:
The Sinclairs established themselves in Tyrone and Donegal in the seventeenth century, and by the 1770s had set up a thriving linen business at Holyhill. In 1778, Mrs Elizabeth Sinclair asked permission from the landowner to divert the course of the Glenmornan River (a tributary of the Foyle) to provide water for a flax mill or a bleaching green.
🍀 Genre: Irish Folk Song, Celtic
👥 Covers: Sinead O'Connor, Rita Eriksen & Dolores Keane, Jennifer Byrne, Tommy Fleming, Tina Mulrooney, Susan McKeown.
🎤 Featured Artists: The Corrs
💿 Album: Home (pictured)
Recorded: 2005
Released: 26 September 2005
- My Lagan Love *
- Spancill Hill *
- Peggy Gordon *
- Black Is the Colour *
- Heart Like a Wheel
- Buachaill Ón Éirne (Boy From Erne)
- Old Hag (instr)
- Moorlough Shore
- Old Town
- Dimming of the Day
- Bríd Óg Ní Mháille (Bridget O'Malley)
- Haste to the Wedding (instr)
- Return To Fingall (instr)
Please Note: Asterisked links will take you to pages performed by other artists.
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