"Mrs McGrath" is an Irish street ballad which I gleaned from Geoffrey Brace's "
Something to Sing". It is a humorous song about a
mother scolding her son for loosing his two legs and wondering how it happened. It is a very Irish idea that you can lose your
legs by wearing them away whilst walking on the sea! Great stuff and nonsense!!
Another version by the Clancy Brothers can be found in their "
The Irish Songbook" under the title of "My son Ted".
This song has nothing to do with Master McGrath, a great greyhound owned by Lord Lurgan and won the Waterloo cup in
1868, 1869 and 1871. The dog of pneumonia during Christmas 1871. There are two monuments to him in County Waterford,
Ireland.
