The song is one of those gems of the Oral Tradition that narrates in ballad form an actual event that is generally missed in the larger historical picture.
The song narrates the horrible story of one aspect of the heartless colonial system, where helpless orphans were abused and seen as breeding animals at the behest of the aristocracy.
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.
