As I grew up in Carlow,
Oh, so many things made me
The person that dear mother
needed me to be.

The year was 1920
And I was a little child,
My mommy said my brother
Hung, because he was so wild.

“He always was a strong one,”
she said to me, with tears.
“Is freedom really worth it, love?
He’d lived but eighteen years.”

That Rathvilly’s a damn one,
And it killed my elder brother.
So my family left that town, one less,
To find peace in another.

And when I was some older,
To Ballinkillin we moved,
For once in my short life,
My dear mother, did approve.

And in the church of Lazerain,
I spent my hours in prayer.
My eyes gazed through the window
That was stained in Wilson’s lair.

I prayed there for my brother,
Who had died those years ago,
and I prayed there for my father,
Of whose name I’d never know.

But now that I am older,
And I dwell in Leighlinbridge,
I pray for my dead family,
To keep the constant homage.

My mother was so strong,
Oh, to raise me like she did,
Alone, though she was never,
For my praying, that forbid.

As I grew up in Carlow,
Oh, so many things made me
The person that dear mother,
needed me to be.