A beautiful, sad lament set during the Great Famine in Ireland in the 1840’s. A young man is being sent on a prison ship to Botany Bay, Australia, for the crime of stealing corn (oats) to feed his starving family. The “Trevelyan” from whom he stole it was an senior English civil servant who had callously stated that the famine was God’s way of teaching the Irish a lesson. Although done in the style of an Irish folk ballad, the song was written by Pete St. John in 1979. This TAB is based on the version by The Dubliners.