“Nancy Mulligan”
I was twenty four years old
When I met the woman I would call my own
Twenty two grand kids now growing old
In the house that your brother bought ya
On the summer day when I proposed
I made that wedding ring from dentist gold
And I asked her father but her daddy said, “No
You can’t marry my daughter”
She and I went on the run
Don’t care about religion
I’m gonna marry the woman I love
Down by the Wexford border
She was Nancy Mulligan
And I was William Sheeran
She took my name and then we were one
Down by the Wexford border
Well, I met her at Guy’s in the second world war
And she was working on a soldier’s ward
Never had I seen such beauty before
The moment that I saw her
Nancy was my yellow rose
And we got married wearing borrowed clothes
We got eight children now growing old
Five sons and three daughters
She and I went on the run
Don’t care about religion
I’m gonna marry the woman I love
Down by the Wexford border
She was Nancy Mulligan
And I was William Sheeran
She took my name and then we were one
Down by the Wexford border
From her snow white streak in her jet black hair
Over sixty years I’ve been loving her
Now we’re sat by the fire, in our old armchairs
You know Nancy I adore ya
From a farm boy born near Belfast town
I never worried about the king and crown
Cause I found my heart upon the southern ground
There’s no difference, I assure ya
She and I went on the run
Don’t care about religion
I’m gonna marry the woman I love
Down by the Wexford border
She was Nancy Mulligan
And I was William Sheeran
She took my name and then we were one
Down by the Wexford border
Writer(s): BENJAMIN LEVIN, AMY WADGE, JOHN MCDAID, MURRAY CUMMINGS, EDWARD SHEERAN, FOY VANCE
This song tells the story about Ed Sheeran’s grandparents, Anne (Nancy) and William (Bill) Sheeran, how they met, fell in love and married.
Ed Sheeran explained to Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 show how his grandparents married, “One was Protestant and from Belfast and one was Catholic from southern Ireland. They got engaged and no one turned up to the wedding. He melted all his gold teeth in his dental surgery and melted them down into a wedding ring. They wore borrowed clothes to get married and had this sort of Romeo and Juliet romance which is like the most romantic thing. I thought I’d write a song about it and make it a jig.”
The words “met her at Guy’s” is a reference to Guy’s Hospital in London, where both William and Nancy were working during the Second World War. He practised dentistry there and Nancy worked there as a nurse.
