One evening of late as I happened to stray,
To the County Tiprary I straight took my way:
To dig the potatoes and work by the day,
I hired with a Cranbally farmer.
I asked him how far we were bound for to go;
The night it was dark, and the north wind did blow:
“I’m hungry and tired and my spirits are low,
I have neither whiskey nor cordial.”

He made me no answer but mounted his steed,
To the Cranbally mountains he posted with speed;
I certainly thought my poor heart it would bleed
To be trudging behind that old naygur.
When I came to his cottage I entered it first;
It seemed like a kennel or ruined old church;
Then says I to myself, “I am left in the lurch
In the house of old Darby O’Leary.”

I well recollect it was Michaelmas might,
To a hearty good supper he did me invite,
A cup of sour milk that would physic a snipe—
Your stomach ‘twould put in disorder.
The wet old potatoes would poison the cats,
The barn where my bed was was swarming with rats,
‘Tis little I thought it would e’er be my lot
To lie in that hole until morning.

By what he had said to me I understood,
My bed in the barn it was not very good;
The blanket was made at the time of the flood;
The quilts and the sheets in proportion.
‘Twas on this old miser I looked with a frown,
When the straw was brought out for to make my shake down;
I wish that I never saw Cranbally town
Or the sky over Darby O’Leary.

I worked in Kilconnell, I worked in Kilmore,
I worked in Knockainy and Shanballymore,
In Pallas-a-Nicker and Sollohodmore,
With decent respectable farmers:
I worked in Tipperary, the Rag, and Rosegreen,
At the mount of Kilfeakle, the Bridge of Aleen,
But such woeful starvation I’ve never yet seen
As I got from old Darby O’Leary.