The Wild Rover

The origin of The Wild Rover is believed to be not an Irish but an English broadside titled The Bad Husband’s Return From His Folly by Thomas Lanfiere, printed around 1680. This broadside tells the same story as The Wild Rover, sometimes word for word, without a chorus but with some thirty verses. Interestingly, while arguably one of the most popular Irish drinking songs, it was originally intended to be a song about temperance.
The reason the song became so popular worldwide probably has to do with the song’s popularity among fishing crews in the Atlantic who traveled extensively. The song has evolved into over 200 versions found in England, Scotland, Ireland, and North America, of which 50 have been collected.