The Ballad Of Rose O Shea Poem by Francis Duggan

She lived with her blind mother beside a purling stream
In their little white washed cottage in the Valley of Rosheen
Her hair as dark as raven's wing and her eyes blue as ripened sloes
The sightless widow's only child the lovely maid named Rose.

Her blind and bedridden mother of chronic cancer died
And she sold the little white washed cot in Rosheen country side
And she left the green vale of Rosheen and Rosheen bogland brown
And sailed across the Irish sea for to live in London Town.

She settled in to City life this sweet Irish colleen
And she grew used to London traffic and the bustling city scene
She worked and saved some money and she earned her livelihood
As a bar maid in a bar room in London's Cricklewood.

It was here she met the man she loved the man she was to wed
An English son of an Irishman a red haired chap named Fred
And on a blustery morn in March a rainy saturday
Miss Rose Reen from Rosheen became Mrs Rose O Shea.

Ah but Fred he was a wild one a wild, wild man was he
He liked his drink and women and he spent his money free
He liked whiskey and women and was unfaithful to his wife
And he proved unsuited for marriage and the married way of life.

In a London hospital maternity ward on a pleasant August morn
A baby son to Rose O Shea and her husband Fred was born
And Rose was now a mother and Fred he was a dad
And Freddy junior was the name they gave the little lad.

But the added responsibility did not reform Fred Shea
And in the bar rooms at the weekends he still spent most of his pay
He had grown tired of his wife Rose like a bored child with his toy
And he showed very little interest in his little baby boy.

Fred found himself a new love a sexy little miss
And his relationship with her went further than a kiss
He walked out on his Irish wife and his young baby son
And he went to live with his new love his golden haired loved one.

The dark haired female from Rosheen erred in her marriage choice
And for her costly error she paid a heartbreak price
She took her son to orphan home with aching breaking heart
And with her blue eyed six months baby boy a tearful Rose did part.

In life it's very easy lose and very hard to win
And women often times suffer at the hands of callous men
And some women forced to part with their young babe like Mrs Rose O Shea
And for some life's a punishment or so 'twould seem that way.