The Rev Dodgson said:
Bubblecar said:
The Rev Dodgson said:
The toob suggested this for me this morning:I recall you being disappointed that this song is about a victim of STD, not someone who died in battle.
I would take some convincing that that is really the case. See:
https://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/wheniwasonhorseback.html
“…
This is one of the many songs that tell the story of a young man or girl cut down in their prime and is usually presented as a cautionary tale of the hazards of catching certain ‘social’ diseases. This version seems to have lost that vital element! This song has many variants: The Unfortunate Rake, The Soldier (Sailor) Cut Down in His Prime, The Royal Albion, and in America The Streets of Laredo and St James’ Infirmary Blues, to name but a few. I first heard it on the 1971 Steeleye Span album Ten Man Mop which was played to me often as a child as light relief from all the Black Sabbath. The source was Mary Doran of Co. Waterford, who called it The Dying Soldier.
…”
Also see:
https://thesession.org/discussions/47159
Re: Cork, May 14?
@GW: That seems to be it!
“Despite the establishment of summary military justice in March, outrages, albeit on a diminished scale, continued to disturb Cork. The most shocking episode was the assassination at Macroom in April of Robert Hutchinson, a prominent member of the local gentry. A party of six assailants graphically demonstrated the degree to which the deferential conventions of the moral economy had collapsed in the county by the winter of 1799, when one of them thrust a pike through Hutchinson’s heart on the staircase of his home. Dozens of arrests ensued and on 14 May the authorities executed five ‘United Irishmen’ for complicity in the murder. Their heads were then displayed as an awful example on Macroom’s bridewell.”