Bonny Portmore is an Irish traditional folk song which laments the demise of Ireland’s old oak forests, specifically the Great Oak of Portmore or the Portmore Ornament Tree, which fell in a windstorm in 1760 and was subsequently used for shipbuilding and other purposes.

The Rails is a folk rock band from London, England, composed of husband and wife James Walbourne and Kami Thompson. Kami Thompson is the daughter of British folk rock legends Richard Thompson and Linda Thompson and her brother is musician Teddy Thompson.

lyrics (traditional)
O bonny Portmore, you shine where you stand
And the more I think on you the more I think long
If I had you now as I had once before
All the lords in Old England would not purchase Portmore.

O bonny Portmore, I am sorry to see
Such a woeful destruction of your ornament tree
For it stood on your shore for many’s the long day
Till the long boats from Antrim came to float it away.

All the birds in the forest they bitterly weep
Saying, “Where shall we shelter or where shall we sleep?”
For the Oak and the Ash, they are all cutten down
And the walls of bonny Portmore are all down to the ground.