[1] The poem recounts the events of the evening of 28 December 1879, when, during a severe gale, the Tay Rail Bridge at Dundee collapsed as a train was passing over it with the loss of all on board.

[3] It begins: And it ends: William McGonagall wrote two other poems about the Tay bridges.

The lines are sometimes of inordinate length and lack any form of scansion or metre.

Finally, any pathos generated by the rambling narrative is usually dispelled by the inclusion of inappropriate or irrelevant details.

[4] On the other hand, Professor Kirstie Blair contends that McGonagall's poems are no better or worse than most of the broadside ballads that were sold on the streets of Scotland in the 19th-century, whose authors have long since sunk into obscurity.