Widespread poverty and starvation also continued and were rooted in the legality of rackrenting and other abuses of power by the Anglo-Irish landlord class, whose edicts were enforced by Sir Robert Peel and his newly formed Royal Irish Constabulary.
A Royal Irish Constabulary officer finds a she-goat roaming the streets of Bansha, County Tipperary and, presuming her guilty of loitering or prostitution ('Stholler', as used in the lyrics, has both meanings).
The peeler arrests her and vows that he will soon send her off to prison in Cashel and that the judge will sentence her to transportation as a convict from Cork harbour to Australia.
The Constable and the she-goat argue over her arrest, and whether or not the court system would return a conviction without proof that a crime was committed.
At the end of the song, the she-goat accuses the peeler of alcoholism, extortion, and police corruption, and alleges that if she were able to bribe him with protection money or illegal liquor, she would be allowed to go free.