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FARMER MICHAEL HAYES
[Recorded by John Faulkner (with Dolores Keane) on "Farewell To Eirin"
and by Planxty (Christy Moore) on "After The Break" (1979), who notes:
"Christy heard versions of this song sung by John Lyons, Tom Lenihan
an unknown singer on Donnacha O'Dulaing's "Highways And Byways". He received
written versions from Mike Flynn and Seamus Mac Mathuna and there's another
in Zimmerman's Songs of Irish Rebellion"
This seems like a sort of crash course in Irish geography. The lyrics are
those of Faulkner, Moore sings a couple of additional lines and lists even
more place names!]

I am a bold undaunted fox that never was before on tramp
My rent, rate and taxes I was willing for to pay
I made my name in fine good land
Between Tipperary and Ochlong
Where my forefathers lived and died
A thousand years or so

But then of late I was betrayed
By one who was a fool I know,
He told me I should leave the place
And show me face no more
And soon as he evicted me
I thought it time that I should flee
So late one night I took his life and left him laying low

But by telegraph they did insert a great reward for my arrest
My figure, size and form, my name without mistake
They broke their brogues, one thousand pairs
This great reward for to obtain
But still their search was all in vain
For Farmer Michael Hayes

They searched Tipperary o'er and o'er
The corn fields near Baltimore
They went across to Wexford then
But they'd not long delay
By Ballyhill and Stridmore Strand
They searched the woods as they came on
Till they were hungry, wet and cold
At the approach of day

Then round the coast they made a steer
From Pulbeg lighthouse to Cape Clear
Killarney town and the sweet Tralee
They then crossed into Clare
And when they landed on the shore
They searched Kilrush from tip to toe
They searched the baths near sweet Lisdoon
Likewise Miltown Malbay

And Galway being a place of fame
They thought 'twas there I might remain
But still their search was all in vain
For I gave them all legbail
They searched the train at Oranmore
As she was starting for Drumore
And every carriage, car and coach
They met upon the road

And Connemara being remote
They thought that there I might resort
When they were getting weary, they resolved to try Mayo
In Swinford town as I sat down
I heard a dreadful cry of hounds
So I lay there in an manger, till the approach of day

Then to Dublin town I made my way
And then to Cobh and Amerikay
And left the hounds to search away
For Farmer Michael Hayes
And as the moon began to shine
I thought I'd make a foreign clime
Now I'm in the land of liberty, and fig for all my foes


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