“My Name is Edward Gallovan”
Description
Edward Gallovan from Wexford courts Mary Riley. He tells her they will sail to America with 20 pounds she has saved. He kills her intending to use her money to escape. The body is found. He is convicted and executed.
Supplemental text
My Name is Edward Gallovan
Partial text(s)
*** A ***
The Wexford Girl
From Helen Creighton, Folksongs from Southern New Brunswick,
#92 pp. 194-195. Collected from Angelo Dornan, Elgin, N.B.
My name is Edward Gallovan, in Wexford I was born,
For the murder of Mary Riley I die in public scorn,
It is of a beautiful fair one who might have been my wife,
But for the sake of cursed gold I took away her life.
Those words that she had said to me would grieve your heart full sore,
Before that I had murdered her and left her in her gore.
She said, "Dear James here are my keys and in my box you'll find
An order on the savings back for the sum of twenty pounds."
(Stanzas 1, 3 of six plus a fragment)
Notes
Creighton-SNewBrunswick calls this "The Wexford Girl" though the singer's title is "My Name is Edward Gallovan." Creighton then goes on to make this an instance of "The Wexford Girl." Except that Wexford, probably Ireland, is mentioned and that a man murders a woman I see no connection. - BS
Nor I; there are several things here which remind me of other songs (the obvious example being the first line, which may have come from "The Flying Cloud"; the only other reference to the murderer calls him "James"). But "The Wexford Girl" is not one of those songs. Roud nonetheless lumps them. - RBW
References
- Creighton-SNewBrunswick 92, "My Name is Edward Gallovan" (1 text, 1 tune)
- ST CrSNB092 (Partial)
- BI, CrSNB092