(Traditional)

As I went down to Galway Town

To seek for recreation
On the seventeenth of August
Me mind being elevated

There were passengers $$#embled
With their tickets at the station
And me eyes began to dazzle

And they off to see the races

With me wack fol the do fol

The diddle idle day

There were passengers from Limerick

And passengers from Nenagh
The boys of Connemara
And the Clare unmarried maiden

There were people from Cork City
Who were loyal, true and faithful
Who brought home the Fenian prisoners

From dying in foreign nations

And it's there you'll see the pipers

And the fiddlers competing
And the sporting wheel of fortune
And the four and twenty quarters

And there's others without scruple
Pelting wattles at poor Maggie
And her father well contented

And he gazing at his daughter

And it's there you'll see the jockeys

And they mounted on so stably
The pink, the blue, the orange, and green
The colors of our nation

The time it came for starting
All the horses seemed impatient
Their feet they hardly touched the ground

The speed was so amazing!

There was half a million people there

Of all denominations
The Catholic, the Protestant, the Jew, the Presbyterian
Yet there was no animosity

No matter what persuasion
But failte hospitality
Inducing fresh acquaintance