Brilliant video, this is the sort of thing we need more of on KZfaq. Will check out of the rest of your channel

Great video and nice rendition at the end🙏 Noel Cassidy introduced me to this song.

Jimmy Carney (1823-1905 of Newport County Tipperary came to Vermont USA to work in the marble quarries in the 1850s and was quite literally working the "rocks of bawn". So he was likely inspired by this ballad known to him, to compose his ballad "The West Rutland Marble Bawn", which details the hard life of the marble quarry men.

Hi Eugene, I grew up between Delvin and Castlepollard in Westmeath, and the story I heard was that Bawn is in Cavan near the Longford border. Sweeney was the ploughman, and he worked for a widow that owned ninty acres of rocky land, and his terror of the ould widow was matched only by his terror of her ninety rocky acres. Legend has it that Sweeney could not read nor write, but he would go to the local blacksmiths forge in the evenings and make up songs, and it was in the forge the song was made up (composed) The only means of escape that poor Sweeney had from the clutch's of the widow was to join the army. Having worked for a couple of ould widows when I was a young lad I can understand his plight. It must have been the hard ground, and hard times that hardened their hearts. Anyway that's my story, but before I finish, legend has it that Sweeney did escape, and lived out his life in New York.

Well done Eugene another great song I first heard this song sung by Scottish lady in the early 70s

Rocks of Baun/Bawn White rocks