Uploaded December 2021 | Updated September 2026, 8 hours ago
Going to Mass Last Sunday / Meeting Is a Pleasure / Courting Is a Pleasure / Handsome Molly / Lovely Molly / Lovin' Hannah / Loving Hannah / Farewell Ballymoney (Roud No. 454) - Sung by Ruby Kelby of Aberdeen, Scotland. Recorded by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in 1962.
Ruby Kelby (née Stewart) was born in Aberdeen in 1918. Her father was a Stewart of Kinlochrannoch and her mother is Christina MacAllister, who has contributed several songs to our collection. Her husband bears a name famous among Scots Travellers, Frank Kelby, who is son to Maggie McPhee.
Song Notes by MacColl and Seeger:
This appears to be a modern adaptation of 'The Lover's Lament', a song in which a young woman, or occasionally a young man, reproaches an unconstant lover. The second and third stanzas are common to most versions of the song and the opening line of the final stanza echoes 'I Wish I Was in London/Dublin', a line found in a number of American songs ('Handsome Molly', 'Bowling Green', etc.). Mrs Kelby learned the song from a North of Ireland Traveller in the early 1950s.
Song transcription:
There is a tree grows at liberty,
And dressed all round with green;
But at the top there is a rose
That everyone has seen.
I went to Mass one Sunday,
My lover passed me by;
O, I knew his mind had altered
By the rovin' o' his eye.
I knew his mind had altered
To a girl of high degree,
But her gold and beauty would fade away
Like the rose that's on the tree.
He said that he would marry me
If I would turn my coat;
But before I'd change my religion
I'll die like Queen Mary Scot.
I wish I was in old Ireland
Lyin' on the grass,
With a prayer-book upon my lap
And upon my breast a cross.
Going to Mass Last Sunday / Meeting Is a Pleasure / Courting Is a Pleasure / Handsome Molly / Lovely Molly / Lovin' Hannah / Loving Hannah / Farewell Ballymoney (Roud No. 454) - Sung by Ruby Kelby of Aberdeen, Scotland. Recorded by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in 1962.
Ruby Kelby (née Stewart) was born in Aberdeen in 1918. Her father was a Stewart of Kinlochrannoch and her mother is Christina MacAllister, who has contributed several songs to our collection. Her husband bears a name famous among Scots Travellers, Frank Kelby, who is son to Maggie McPhee.
Song Notes by MacColl and Seeger:
This appears to be a modern adaptation of 'The Lover's Lament', a song in which a young woman, or occasionally a young man, reproaches an unconstant lover. The second and third stanzas are common to most versions of the song and the opening line of the final stanza echoes 'I Wish I Was in London/Dublin', a line found in a number of American songs ('Handsome Molly', 'Bowling Green', etc.). Mrs Kelby learned the song from a North of Ireland Traveller in the early 1950s.
Song transcription:
There is a tree grows at liberty,
And dressed all round with green;
But at the top there is a rose
That everyone has seen.
I went to Mass one Sunday,
My lover passed me by;
O, I knew his mind had altered
By the rovin' o' his eye.
I knew his mind had altered
To a girl of high degree,
But her gold and beauty would fade away
Like the rose that's on the tree.
He said that he would marry me
If I would turn my coat;
But before I'd change my religion
I'll die like Queen Mary Scot.
I wish I was in old Ireland
Lyin' on the grass,
With a prayer-book upon my lap
And upon my breast a cross.
