“George's Quay”
Description
Johnny Doyle sails for China leaving Mary pregnant. Years later Mary's son grows up. She dresses as a sailor and ships aboard a pirate to find Johnny. Their ships meet. Johnny is a captain. They return home, marry and she becomes pregnant again.
Notes
Anyone else think this is an Irish rewrite of _The Odyssey_?
Incidentally, the song says that "In China... they're very wise and drown at birth their surplus daughters." This is historically true (though it's even more common in India), and there is evidence that elimination of baby girls continues in China due to the "one child" policy (though they now use abortion rather than infanticide). Matt Ridley, _The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature_, Penguin, 1993, p. 122, notes "The Chinese, deprived of the chance to have more than one child, killed more than 250,000 girls after birth between 1979 and 1984. In some age groups in China, there are 122 boys for every 100 girls. In one recent study of clinics in Bombay, of 8,000 abortions, 7,997 were of female fetuses."
However, this is by no means wise if the goal is to leave descendants. The policy obviously produces a surplus of males -- who end up leaving with no descendants because they cannot marry. I have seen reports that the effects of this are already being seen, though I can't recall the source. - RBW
References
- OLochlainn-More 89, "George's Quay" or "The Forgetful Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
- ADDITIONAL: Frank Harte _Songs of Dublin_, second edition, Ossian, 1993, pp. 34-35, "George's Quay (or The Forgetful Sailor)" (1 text, 1 tune)
- BI, OLcM089