The song “Paddy Works on the Erie” journeys year by year through the 1840s, when more than a million Irish people died of hunger in four years and another million, half of them women and girls, scattered to the crossroads of America.ĭuring the famine period 500,000 Irishspeakers immigrated to the United States, Yet, despite the immigration of millions of Irish speaking people to America over three centuries, scholars have ignored the influence of the Irish language on American culture and vernacular. It gave his mouth an appearance of ferocity not in the heart… His shoulders were early stooped, as from carrying the inherited burdens of a thousand dead Irish peasants… A man of some imagination, he loved the tingle of warm liquor in his blood. “My father was a gorilla-built man… The ends of a carrot-red mustache touched his shoulder blades. The writer Jim Tully described his Irish Famine immigrant father in his 1928 memoir Shanty Irish. n., a burly person a husky, muscular person, fig. In other words, Paddy was a “woikin’ stiff.” ( )įrom the 17th century to the 1920s, seven million Irish people immigrated to North America and built the canals (canálacha), railroads (bóithre iarainn), and highways (bóithre mór) of the industrial revolution that transformed the United States. At Duffy’s Cut in Malvern, archeologists recently uncovered the site of a mass burial of fifty seven Irish railroad workers, victims of typhus, cholera, and violence that plagued poor Paddy, working on the railway. In Pennsylvania in the 19th century, it was said that every mile of railroad was an Irish grave. The lyrics vary widely, with versions scattered all across the mid-19th century Irish diaspora, from New York to Melbourne, wherever Paddy bent his back and laid a track. The earliest printed version of the song is dated 1864. The poet Carl Sandburg claimed he discovered “Paddy Works on the Erie” on sheet music published in 1850 but no copy has ever been found. Writer(s): TRADITIONAL, LUKE KELLY, RONALD JOSEPH DREW, BARNEY MCKENNA, CIARON BOURKE, JOHN EDMUND SHEEHANLyrics powered by Works on the Erie” is one of the most popular and widely known American work songs.īut, “Paddy Works on the Erie” is also a sanas-laoi, a secret song, of the crossroads.īad cess to the luck that brought me through, In eighteen hundred and forty one, me corduroy breeches I put on Me corduroy breeches I put on, to work upon the railway, the railway I'm weary of the railway, poor Paddy works on the railway In eighteen hundred and forty two, from Bartley Pool I moved to Crewe And I found meself a job to do, workin' on the railway I was wearing corduroy britches Digging ditches, pulling switches, dodging hitches I was workin' on the railway In eighteen hundred and forty three I broke me shovel across me knee And went to work with the company in the Leeds and Selby Railway I was wearing corduroy britches Digging ditches, pulling switches, dodging hitches I was workin' on the railway In eighteen hundred and forty four I landed on the Liverpool shore Me belly was empty, me hands were rough with workin' on the railway, the railway I'm weary of the railway, poor Paddy works on the railway In eighteen hundred and forty five, when Daniel O'Connell he was alive Daniel O'Connell he was alive and workin' on the railway I was wearing corduroy britches Digging ditches, pulling switches, dodging hitches I was workin' on the railway In eighteen hundred and forty six I changed me trade from carryin' bricks Changed me trade from carryin' bricks to workin' on the railway I was wearing corduroy britches Digging ditches, pulling switches, dodging hitches I was workin' on the railway In eighteen hundred and forty seven poor Paddy was thinkin' of goin' ta heaven Poor Paddy was thinkin' of goin' ta heaven, to work upon the railway, the railway I'm weary of the railway, poor Paddy works on the railway I was wearing corduroy britches Digging ditches, pulling switches, dodging hitches I was workin' on the railway
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