Henry's Songbook

Hunger, hardship and poverty are the traveller's weary load
Hunger, hardship and poverty and the blue tar road

I am a true born Irishman, a traveller am I
My home's the road, no fixed abode, I'll travel till I die
For few men give me camping space and fewer call me friend
The hard road of the travelling man I'll travel till the end

To Dublin city fair we came in the year of fifty-nine
And we camped in Lansdowne's green valleys with others of our kind
But Dublin Corporation, good Christians to a man
They tore down our tents, uprooted us and towed out our caravans

And here in Cherry Orchard where no cherry blossoms bloom
We're forgotten and unwanted in dirt and muck and gloom
But the man above who died for love and nailed unto a tree
Sure wasn't he a traveller, the same as you and me

Last chorus:
And some day in His own good time he will ease a traveller's load
And we'll bid farewell to poverty and the blue tar road

As sung by Kevin Mitchell