Gest

   I'll have to work on this one - my acquaintance with the term 'pincher' originated with oral interviews and I just accepted it without question as part of the navvies' jargon ('can do better', as the teachers say!).

I correspond occasionally with Sir William ('Bill' as he likes to sign himself!) MacAlpine so I'll ask his opinion; the family take great pride in their long association with Irish labour, their Scottish ancestry notwithstanding.

On a related point: I was researching pictures in the MacAlpine HQ in Hemel Hempstead one afternoon when I first met Bill. He'd obviously dined well, and was feeling expansive, so we sang a few verses of the eponymous song together at his invitation - much to the consternation of the office staff!

Interestingly, he insisted that the classic Behan/Dubliners' version was a derivation of an earlier song, and could quote lines in support of his argument. I didn't know enough to argue...About two years ago however, I was researching work songs of migrant labour when I met the musician and collector Joe Byrne of Aghamore in East Mayo, and he knew that facts of the case.

Apparently MacAlpine's Fusiliers was written (but not copyrighted!) by one Martin Henry of Rooskey, near Doocastle in East Mayo, probably sometime in the 'Fifties. Martin, like men over many generations in that part of Mayo, had for many years been a Spailpin or seasonal harvester/farm labourer in England and, again like many others, had gravitated into construction in search of work.

It was commonplace for such men to write doggerel verse about their experiences and put it to traditional airs (as in so many manual occupations) and there are a lot of similar but less familiar songs known to Irish collectors.

One very significant fact which supports this is the line:
'I stripped to the skin with the Darky Finn
Way down in the Isle of Grain'

The Darky Finn was a neighbour of Martin Henry and lived in Cloontia, near Doocastle. The Isle of Grain project, as readers of The men who built Britain will know, entailed construction of an oil terminal, refinery, and power station over almost ten years between the late 'Fifties and early 'Sixties.

I suspect that Dominic added to the song and saw its commercial potential...such is life! Martin is dead but his sister still lives.

Ultan