The Maid of Mourne Shore – Traditional Irish Love Ballad (Sam Henry Collection)
The Maid of Mourne Shore — An Irish Ballad of Love, Loss & Departure The Maid of Mourne Shore is one of Ireland’s most tender and bittersweet traditional ballads — a song of unreturned love and exile set along the beautiful, windswept coast of County Down. Its verses combine the quiet poetry of the countryside with the ache of separation that echoes through so many Irish songs. The story follows a young man who wanders the hills and dales by Mourne’s fair shore , remembering days of youth spent fishing and courting. When he visits his beloved to ask her heart, she gently turns him away — her promise already given to a sailor boy across the sea. Though the rejected lover warns that the sea may take her sailor, she stands firm in loyalty: “If the sea proves false to me, no other lad I’ll enjoy.” The song then shifts from affection to farewell. The young man bids goodbye to Lord Edmund’s leafy groves and the linen greens of the Mourne countryside — scenes of peace and industr...