Linked by Malcolm Douglas, but since it seems to be the earliest, sometime in the last 40 years of the 19th c, it should be posted.

Lyr. Add: PAT IN AMERICA
Air- Happy Land of Erin

Arragh, bidenahust my boys,
Sure and that is hould your noise,
'Till you hear a simple Paddy's oration;
When at home I was distressed,
And with poverty oppressed,
So I took a thought to leave the Irish nation.

Chorus:
Arragh, do boys, do take my advice,
To America I'd have you not be coming,
For there is nothing here but war,
And the murdering cannon's roar,
Faith I wish I was at home in dear old Erin.

Then I sold my horse and cow,
Sucking pigs and breeding sow,
And with my little farm of land I parted,
And my sweetheart Ann M'Gee,
I'm afraid I'll never see,
For I left her that morning broken hearted.

Then myself and hundreds more,
To America sailed o'er,
My fortune to make I was thinking,
When I reached the Yankee land,
They put a gun into my hand,
Saying Paddy we must go and fight like winking.

General Meagher to us said,
If you're shot or lose your head,
Every man and mother's son will get a pension.
In their war I've lost my leg,
And all I've got's a wooden peg,
Believe me, boys, it's truth to you I mention.

Now I think myself in luck,
To be fed on Indian buck,
In old Ireland the country I delight in,
And to the devil I would say,
With this cursed America,
For truth I've had my full of fighting.

Two copies in the Bodleian, one prined in London by T. Taylor, the other without data.

In an earlier post, it was suggested that the song was written probably within ten years of the end of the war in 1865 because of the talk of pension. A great grandfather of mine received requests for help from former soldiers and their widows long after the war; records were often incomplete and affidavits were needed from former officers of units in which the soldiers served. Without checking dates on the old papers, some were still trying for payments in the 1880s.