One of the many songs I learned as a child at the North Monastery Christian Brothers School in Fairhill, Cork City. This haunting early 18th century song mourns the death of Margaret Butler, Viscountess Iveagh ["Lady Iveagh"]. Her first husband, the attainted Jacobite Brian Maginnis (Mac Guinness), having died in the Austrian service, she married Colonel Thomas Butler of Kilcash Castle, a nominal Protestant who connived at her sheltering of Catholic bishops and priests there.
..."What will we do for wood now that the last of the forests are down...".The English hacked down the forests so that the Irish couldn't take refuge in them and raid the planters who had stolen their land. Dennis Cahill: Guitar, Mandolin, Bass.