From the recording The Road Out of Town
This air is taken from a song titled "A Ghaoith รณ nDeas" ("Oh Wind from the South"). The song was printed in Edward Bunting's 1809 Collection of Irish Folk Music, though Bunting also notated the tune under a different title, "Why Should Not Poor Folk," stating it as having been transcribed from the playing of a harper of County Clare in 1792. The text of the song has been attributed to a Domnhall Meirgeach Mac ConMara (Freckled Donal MacNamara) of County Mayo and deals with a poet conversing with the wind, speaking of his longing for his homeland.
Lyrics
(The Poet speaks)
O South Wind of the gentle rain
You banish winter's weather,
Bring salmon to the pool again,
The bees among the heather.
If northward now you mean to blow,
As you rustle soft above me,
God Speed be with you as you go,
With a kiss for those that love me!
(The Wind Speaks)
From south I come with velvet breeze,
My work all nature blesses,
I melt the snow and strew the leaves
With flowers and soft caresses.
I'll help you to dispel your woe,
With joy I'll take your greeting
And bear it to your loved Mayo
Upon my wings so fleeting.
(The Poet speaks)
My Connacht, famed for wine and play,
So loyal, so gay, so loving,
Here's a fond kiss I send today
Borne by the wind in its roving.
These Munster folk are good and kind.
Right royally they treat me
But this land I'd gladly leave behind
With your Connacht pipes to greet me.
(English lyrics from Songs of the Irish by Donal O'Sullivan)