Near Banbridge Town in the county Down   One morning last July   Down a boreen green came a sweet coleen   And she smiled as she passed me by   She looked so sweet from her two bare feet   To the sheen of her nut-brown hair   Such a coaxing elf, sure I shook myself   For to see I was really there     From Bantry Bay up to Derry Quay,   And from Galway to Dublin town   No maid I’ve seen like the brown coleen   That I met in the county Down     As she onward sped, sure I scratched my head   And I looked with a feeling rare   And I says, says I, to a passer-by   Who‘s the maid with the nut-brown hair?   He smiled at me and then says he   That‘s the gem of the Irelands crown.   Young Rosie McCann from the Banks of the Bann   She’s the sta rof the county Down     At the harvest fair she’ll be surely there,   So I dress in my Sunday clothes   With my shoes shone bright and my hat cocked right   For a smile from my nut-brown Rose   No pipe I’ll smoke, no horse I‘ll yoke,   Till my plough is a rust-coloured brown   Till a smiling bride by my own fireside,   Sits the star of the county Down