My Little Kerry Cow
‘Tis in Connacht and in Munster, you may travel far and wide,
And be askin’ all the folk you meet along the country side,
But you’ll never meet a one can show the likes of her till now,
Where she’s grazing in the Leinster fields my little Kerry cow.
If herself went to the cattle fair, she’d put all other cows to shame,
And the greatest poets would assemble there, to sing about her fame;
Young girls would be askin’ leave to stroke her satin coat,
They’d be praising and caressing her, and calling her a dote.
If the King of Spain gets news of her, he’ll fill his purse with gold,
And set sail to ask the English King where she is to be sold,
But the King of Spain may come to me, a crown upon his brow,
‘Tis he may keep his golden purse—and I my Kerry cow.
If the Ulster men should hear of her, they’ll come with swords and pikes,
‘Tis civil war—there’ll be no less, if they should see her likes,
And in the papers you will read of the bloody fight there’s been,
And the Orangemen they’re buryin’ in the fields of Leinster green.
Perhaps the Priest will tell her fame to the Holy Pope of Rome,
And the Cardinals’ College send for her to leave her Irish home,
But it’s heart broke she would be herself to cross the Irish sea,
Twould be better they send a blessing for my Kerry cow and me.
There’s red cows that’s contrary, and white cows that’s quare and wild,
But my Kerry cow is biddable, and gentle as a child,
You could raise up kings and heroes on the lovely milk she yields,
For she’s fit to foster generals to lead out battlefields.
In the hist’ries they’ll be making, they’ve a right to put her name,
With the horse of Troy and Odin’s hounds and other beasts of fame,
And artists will be painting her, beneath the hawthorn bough,
Where she’s grazing on the good green grass—my little Kerry cow.
I picked up another hard-to-find songbook recently: North Pennsylvania Minstrelsy: As Sung in the Backwoods Settlements, Hunting Cabins and Lumber Camps in the “Black Foret” of Pennsylvania 184-1923 by Shoemaker. I have come to expect at least a couple tasty morsels of Irish-American song in these books and this one did not disappoint. This month we have “My Little Kerry Cow” or, as it’s titled in Shoemaker, “My Little Kerry Gow.”
Shoemaker tells us that the text was written down by John C. French of Roulette, PA in 1918. It turns out to be a poem that appeared in 1913 in Songs from Leinster by Dublin-based Anglo-Irish poet Winifred M. Letts (1882-1972). Letts wrote the poem and may have published it in a magazine prior to 1913. Amazingly, it may have been as little as 5 years old when it was given to Shoemaker in Pennsylvania!
It does seem to have entered tradition as a song. Maureen Melly, daughter of legendary Fermanagh singer Brigid Tunney and sister to Paddy Tunney, sang her version for collectors Seán Ó Baoill and Peter Kennedy in Belfast in 1953. This recording is accessible online on the Oriel Traditional Music Archive (otma.ie).
The above is primarily the Pennsylvania text and Melly’s melody with a few words borrowed from Melly and from Letts’ original.