Irish Rover
"The Irish Rover" (Roud 4379) is an Irish folk song about a magnificent though improbable sailing ship that reaches an unfortunate end. It has been recorded by numerous artists, with the lyrics changing over time due to the folk process.
The song describes a gigantic ship with "twenty-three masts" (versions by the Dubliners and the Pogues claim twenty-seven), a colourful crew and varied types of cargo in enormous amounts. The verses grow successively more extravagant about the wonders of the great ship. The seven-year voyage culminates in a disastrous end, after the ship suffers a measles outbreak, killing all but the narrator and the captain's dog. The ship then strikes a rock, turning "nine times around" and sinking. The captain's dog drowns in the incident, and the narrator is the only survivor, "the last of the Irish Rover", leaving no one else alive to contradict the tale.
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