Bonny Portmore

The Song

"Bonny Portmore" is an Irish traditional folk song which laments the demise of Ireland's old oak forests, specifically the Great Oak of Portmore or the Portmore Ornament Tree, which fell in a windstorm in 1760 and was subsequently used for shipbuilding and other purposes.

Lyrics

O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand

And the more I think on you the more I think long

If I had you now as I had once before

All the lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

O bonny Portmore, I am sorry to see

Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree

For it stood on your shore for many's the long day

Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.

O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand

And the more I think on you the more I think long

If I had you now as I had once before

All the lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

All the birds in the forest they bitterly weep

Saying, "Where will we shelter or where will we sleep?"

For the Oak and the Ash, they are all cutten down

And the walls of bonny Portmore are all down to the ground.

O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand

And the more I think on you the more I think long

If I had you now as I had once before

All the Lords of Old England would not purchase Portmore.