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Guitar: The Bard Of Armagh (Including lyrics and chords)

2,740 views · Published 23 April 2009 · 3:49 · Indexed 1 November 2026

Channel: threelegsoman · 2009 · Music

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The tune to this lovely lilting song should be familiar as it was later used for an American Cowboy Song, 'The Streets of Laredo', a version of which I uploaded some time ago. This is the original Irish Folk Song telling in a few short verses the life story of Phelim Brady, a harper from Armagh.

The Bard Of Armagh
Patrick Donnelly (Bishop of Dromore 1697)
No capo

C                        F            C                G7   
Oh list' to the lay of a poor Irish harper
         C                       G                     C                      G7   
And scorn not the strings of his old withered hands
            C                         F                     C                             G7    
But remember those fingers they once could move sharper
      Am                G                      C           G7   C   
To raise up the strains of his dear native land

It was long before the shamrock, dear isle's lovely emblem
Was crushed in its beauty by the Saxon's lion paw
And all the pretty colleens around me would gather
Call me their bold Phelim Brady, the Bard of Armagh

How I love to muse on the days of my boyhood
Though four score and three years have fled by since then
It's king's sweet reflection that every young joy should
For the merry-hearted boys make the best of old men

At a fair or a wake I would twist my shillelagh
And trip through a dance with my brogues tied with straw
There all the pretty maidens around me would gather
Call me their bold Phelim Brady, the Bard of Armagh

In truth I have wandered this wide world over
Yet Ireland's my home and a dwelling for me
And, oh, let the turf that my old bones shall cover
Be cut from the land that is trod by the free

And when Sergeant Death in his cold arms doth embrace
And lull me to sleep with old ‘Erin-go-bragh’
By the side of my Kathleen, my dear wife, oh place me
Then forget Phelim Brady, the Bard of Armagh

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