Like many traditional folk songs, the song tells the story of a blossoming love that ends in sadness as the two lovers are separated. Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem were the first artists to bring Red is the Rose to a worldwide audience. Makem said he learned the song from his mother, Sarah, who was a well known singer and folk song collector from Armagh in Northern Ireland. Makem recorded the song on his Songbag album in 1990, cementing its place in the Irish folk tradition. He often performed it

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