Ronnie Drew - McAlpine's Fusiliers (Live Performance W/Lyrics) video free download

Ronnie Drew was a great admirer of Dominic and Brenden Behan's works. McAlpine's Fusiliers is a famous Irish ballad set to a traditional air, written in the early 1960s by Dominic Behan. The song relates to the mass migration of Irish labor from Ireland to England that took place prior to, after and especially during The ballad's title refers to Sir Robert McAlpine, a major employer of Irish workmen. The song offers a satirical but on the whole accurate view of the life and work of the Irish laborers of the times and as such proved extremely popular, resonating strongly with the Irish population of London. It's interesting to note that Ronnie was a young man in London during the rebuilding, but worked as a less-than-successful salesman of vacuum cleaners.

'Twas in the year of 'thirty-nine when the sky was full of lead

When Hitler was heading for Poland, and Paddy for Holyhead

Come all you pincher laddies and you long-distance men

Don't ever work for McAlpine, for Wimpey, or John Laing

You'll stand behind a mixer until your skin is turned to tan

And they'll say, Good on you, Paddy, with your boat fare in your hand

Oh, the craic was good in Cricklewood and they wouldn't leave the Crown

With glasses flying and Biddys crying 'cause Paddy was going to town

Oh mother dear, I'm over here and I'm never coming back

What keeps me here is the reek o' beer, the ladies and the craic

I come from county Kerry, the land of eggs and bacon

And if you think I'll eat your fish and chips, oh dear, then you're mistaken...

As down the glen came McAlpine's men

With their shovels slung behind them

It was in the pub that they drank their sub

Or down in the spike you'll find them

We sweated blood and we washed down mud

With quarts and pints of beer

But now we're on the road again with McAlpine's Fusiliers

I stripped to the skin with Darky Finn

Way down upon the Isle of Grain

With Horseface Toole I learned the rule

No money if you stop for rain

For McAlpine's god is a well filled hod

Your shoulders cut to bits and seared

And woe to he who looks for tea with McAlpine's Fusiliers

I remember the day that the Bear O'Shea

Fell into a concrete stairs

What Horseface said, when he saw him dead,

Well it wasn't what the rich call prayers

"I'm a navvy short," was his one retort

That reached unto my ears

When the going is rough, well you must be tough, with McAlpine's Fusiliers

I've worked till the sweat near had me bet

With Russian, Czech and Pole

At shuttering jams up in the Hydro Dams

or underneath the Thames in a hole

I grafted hard and I got me cards

and many a ganger's fist across me ears

If you pride your life, don't join, by Christ, with McAlpine's Fusiliers!