The Price of Twelve Potatoes

Author: Martin Power
Melody: The Wild Colonial Boy

The Price of Twelve Potatoes

Author: Martin Power
Melody: The Wild Colonial Boy

The year was eighteen forty-five at the court in Tullow town,
Margaret Butler and three other girls were charged before the crown;
The crime of petty larceny is what the judge did say
And 'for this awful, heinous act it's now you'll have to pay'.

It's seven year's transportation, it's the price that you will pay,
The sentence passed, the gavel down, 'Take the prisoners now away';
Though Margaret begged for mercy, the judge he did not care,
'Compassion for a thief', he said, 'you will not find it here'.

Margaret was a widow lass with six children at her hem,
She did everything that God could ask but the hunger couldn't stem,
'Twas twelve potatoes that she stole, that was her 'terrible crime'
And now the price, it must be paid and she must serve the time.

CHORUS
Seven years of a mother's life, family torn apart,
The price of twelve potatoes to a judge without a heart.

They put her in Grangegorman gaol till the convict ship it came,
It was then they split the family up, Margaret's pleas they fell in vain
And of the six they left her two, young William and Mary Anne,
The others, to the workhouse sent, she would never see again.

The ship set sail from Kingstown port and Margaret's heart was broke
For the children that she left behind and the home she'd see no more;
The voyage was long and brutal conditions, hard and poor
And after four months on the sea they landed safe on shore.

But Margaret's life did not improve, she was taken straight away
and put into a holding cell, her children torn away;
They placed them in an orphanage and she's see William never more
And Mary Anne she wouldn't see till her seven years were o'er.

CHORUS

Margaret served her seven years and they were as hard as they could be,
She tried to keep her spirits up, knowing one day she's be free
And when the day it did arrive and she was free once more
She searched and sought out Mary Anne to start their life all o'er.

Now I could end the story there but that would not be right
So I'll tell you everything I know about Margaret Butler's life;
She fought to build a better life for her and Mary Anne
But fortune would not shine upon this girl from Ireland.

She married for a second time a man called Shackleton,
She thought she found some happiness and luck had finally come,
But he too was a convict lad, from England he had come
And 'twas he that took young Margaret's life as poorMary Anne looked on.

CHORUS

The ballad tells the story of one victim of Colonial 'justice', where a sentence without compassion compounded the misery of the Famine by cruel application of the law.