Best-Loved Irish Ballads

Emma Byrne is a graphic designer and artist. She is a graduate of Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. She has won numerous awards for her design including The IDI (Irish Design Institute) Graduate Designer of the Year, the IDI Promotional Literature Award for her work on Brown Morning, and a Children’s Books Ireland Bisto Merit Award for her work on Something Beginning With P: New Poems from Irish Poets. She has illustrated many books, including Best-Loved Oscar Wilde, Best-Loved Yeats, The Most Beautiful Letter in the World by Karl O’Neill, a special edition of Ulysses by James Joyce, and A Terrible Beauty by Mairéad Ashe Fitzgerald. Her other books are Irish Thatch and, with Eoin O’Brien, Best-Loved Irish Ballads.Eoin O’Brien is a songwriter and musician, a writer and illustrator. He enjoys nothing more than a good old singsong around a kitchen table or a bonfire. He lives in beautiful Finglas in north Dublin, and has two fantastic children.

• Introduction 6Craic and Drink 9Are Ye Right There Michael? 11Finnegan’s Wake 17I’ll Tell Me Ma 21The Irish Rover 25Lanigan’s Ball 31The Rare Old Mountain Dew 37The Waxies’ Dargle 41Revolution and Nationalism 45Arthur McBride 47Boulavogue 53Follow Me Up to Carlow 57Kevin Barry 61A Nation Once Again 65The Wearing of the Green 69Love and Tragedy 73As I Roved Out 75Danny Boy 79The Dawning of the Day 83Down By the Sally Gardens 87The Galway Shawl 91The Rose of Tralee 95She Moved Through the Fair 98The Star of the County Down 101Home and Emigration 105The Banks of My Own Lovely Lee 107Carrickfergus 111Molly Malone 115The Mountains of Mourne 119Muirsheen Durkin 123Spancil Hill 127Adventure and Misadventure 131The Black Velvet Band 133The Rocky Road to Dublin 137Weela Weela Walya 141The Well Below the Valley 145Whiskey in the Jar 149The Wild Colonial Boy 153The Wild Rover 157