Barnyards of Delgaty - Live in a Bothy (Patreon)

"Barnyards of Delgaty" is a Scottish song known as one of the Bothy Ballads. 

A bothy ballad is a song that was sung by itinerant farmers in Scotland. People traveled from town to town looking for farm work. If you got employ you would get food and housing and a little money. 

It was a very rough lifestyle. Because of that a series of ballads were written to sort of fantasize about a better life, like "Barnyards of Delgaty" which tells of a farmer who gets promised a good job and horse only to find the horse is run down old nag. But he dreams of a better life.

We stopped off at Victorian Walled Gardens in Kylemore Abbey in Connemara, Ireland on the Celtic Invasion of County Mayo. There's a bothy there. This one was used as workshed more than a bedroom that would house 10 farmers. 

It was nevertheless a great place to record a video of "Barnyards of Delgaty".