Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill - Turlough Óg (O'Boyle)

Wild are they hills, O Donegal, that frownin' darkly rise
As if to greet the mist that falls upon them from the skies
Dark, dark the hills and darker still thy mountain torrents flow
But none so dark as Maolmuire's heart in his castle hall at Doe.

Fair are thy plains, O Donegal, and calm thy winding streams
That gently flow by hut and hall beneath the bright sunbeams
But plain or stream or meadow green of flower upon the lea
Were not more mild than Maolmuire's child, so sweet and fair was she.

Stout grow thy oak, O Donegal, and straight thy ashen tree
And swift and straight thy sons so tall her country's pride to see
But oak or ash or young men all that spring from Irish soil
Were not more stout, swift, straight and strong than the chief of Clan O'Boyle.

He was the pride of Faugher side from the hills of Ballymore.
For feats of strength none equalled him from Fanad to Gaoth Dobhair
And he would go through frost and snow on a merry Christmas Day
With ringing cheer to hunt the deer from his haunts in dark Glenveagh.

In his little boat O'Boyle would float, a fishin' he would go
With hook and line to Lackagh stream that runs by castle Doe.
High in the castle tower his loved one lay confined
And on its lofty battlements in sorrow deep she pined.

At the castle strand two boats lay manned to wait the rising tide.
Maolmuire there is chief command right cowardly did hide.
And when O'Boyle his homeward course steered by the Bishop's Isle
They were waylaid and a prisoner made of fearless young O'Boyle.

They brought him to the castle, in strong irons he was bound
And by Maolmuire was confined to a dungeon underground.
But in a few days after inside the graveyard wall
Four stalwart ruffians bore a bier wrapped in a funeral pall.

Poor Aileen, in her tower above, beheld the mournful scene.
In mute amaze she cast a gaze upon the graveyard green
All pale and death beside a mound of freshly risen soil,
The pall removed, she there beheld the features of O'Boyle.

Then with a shriek she madly leapt from the tower to the ground
Whereby her faithful waiting maid her corpse in cold was found.
And in Doe Castle graveyard green beneath the mouldering soil
Maolmuire's daughter sleeps in death with Turlough Óg O'Boyle.