First published in London in 1867 and written by Joseph B. Geoghegan, a prolific English songwriter and successful music hall figure,[1] it remained popular in Britain and Ireland and the United States into the early years of the 20th century.
The song was recorded by The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem on their eponymous album in 1961,[2][3] leading to a renewal of its popularity.
Except for an initial framing stanza, the song is a monologue by an Irish woman who meets her former lover on the road to Athy, which is located in County Kildare, Ireland.
He was badly disfigured, losing his legs, his arms, his eyes and, in some versions, his nose, in fighting on the island of "Sulloon", or Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka), and will have to be put in (or, in some versions, with) a bowl to beg.
[4] However, a recent study by Jonathan Lighter, Lecturer in English at the University of Tennessee and editor of the Historical Dictionary of American Slang, has shown that these suppositions are incorrect since "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" originally had a different melody and was later updated using the melody of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" meaning musically "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" was the copy, not the original version.