The song tells the story of a woman whose son enters the British Army and returns seven years later having lost his legs to a cannonball while fighting against Napoleon presumably at the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro (fought between 3 and 5 May 1811).
Along with "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye", it is one of the most graphic of all Irish folk songs that deal with sickness and injuries caused by warfare.
[1] Irish folk song collector Colm Ó Lochlainn described "Mrs. Grath" as "known to every true born citizen of Dublin".
The Dubliners also recorded it on the 1965 EP In Person featuring Ronnie Drew, and later sang it to new lyrics, though keeping the tune of the original folk song, on the 1968 album Drinkin' and Courtin'.
This latter version tells the story of a country boy who goes to college in Dublin but fails due to spending all his money and time on "women and drink".
Of these, critic Steven L. Jones singled out Minneapolis group Boiled in Lead's rendition, from their 1989 album From the Ladle to the Grave as a skillful modernization that also stayed true to the song's politics and "underlying rage and terror.