Never again will I go to Cashel
Selling and trading my health
Nor to the hiring-fair, sitting by the wall
A lounger on the roadside
The bucks of the country coming on their horses
Asking if I'm hired
"Oh let's go, the journey is long"
Off goes the Spailpín Fánach

I was left as a Spailpín Fánach
Depending on my health
Walking the dew early in the morning
Catching all the illnesses going around
You'll not see a hook in my hand for harvesting
A flail or a short spade
But the flag of France over my bed
And the pike for stabbing

Five hundred farewells to the land of my father
And to the dear island
And to the boys of Cualach because they never
Feared in the troubled times on defense
But now that I am poor, miserable and alone
In these foreign lands
I'm heart-broken because I got the call
To be a Spailpín Fánach

I well remember my people were at one time
Over at the bridge at Gáil
With cattle, with sheep, with little white calves
And plenty of horses
But it was the will of God that we were evicted
And we were left with only our health
And what broke my heart everywhere I went
"Call here, you Spailpín Fánach"