The original verses of the song were written in Irish by Máirtín Ó Clochartaigh and Pádraic Ó Maille of Leitir Caladh (a townland to the north of Leitir Mór, County Galway) around the turn of the 20th century. It was published in the review An Claidheamh Soluis in 1911. However, new verses were added at various times and places as the song gained popularity in Irish-speaking districts. In general, the song extols the beauty of a woman called Peigín, and tells how she attracts not only the poet but men from different districts. The song is also played as a polka, without lyrics, by traditional musicians.

From joeheaney.org: This is a song about a little baby, about six months old. And to anybody who didn’t understand what the song was about, to listen to it, to understand the words of it, you’d swear it was a song composed for a beautiful young woman…and the child was only six months old. And she was so nice, so beautiful, that the…poet, or whoever composed the song, was doing her justice before her time. But she– according to everybody, she deserved it.