As I rambled home one moonlight night, from the town of Donegal,
Feeling good, as a piper should, I didn’t care at all.
I met a lass, she drove an ass, says she, ‘Is that you, Séan?
As you’re out so late won’t you take a seat, longside the Cailín Bán?’

She sang a song and we jogged along to the town of Tandragee.
Says she, ‘Come in and meet me Da and have a cup of tea.’
The tea being strong it was not long till Dad began to yawn.
Then I slipped my arm around the waist of the far down Cailín Bán.

I have traveled over Erin’s Isle, North, South, East and West;
I never met a cailín with such a [cailín] beauty blessed.
I’ll jog along the whole day long from morning until night,
Till I sit beside my smiling bride, my far down Cailín Bán.

“Tom possibly got this from one of his American-Irish song books; he says it was written by ‘Seán Nolan’, a Vaudville performer who also wrote ‘The Old Skillet Pot’ and ‘Kerry Long Ago’. He makes a slight slip in the second line of the last verse when he sings: ‘I never met a cailín with such (stumbles - should be ‘beauty’) blessed.’”
Jim Carroll