This song is on the soundtrack for 'Long Journey Home, The Irish in America', a film recently aired on American PBS stations. Mary Black sings Paddy's Lamentation. I have the lyrics for the version she sings in the CD notes, but when I looked in the database, I eventually found another version called 'By The Hush'. I was particularly drawn to this song because General Meagher played a role in Montana history. There is a Meagher county in Montana (we pronounce it Mar) and a Meagher Ave. in a new subdivision (with streets named after counties) of Bozeman. I have heard that houses being built on Meagher Ave. are harder to sell, because people moving here don't want to live on 'meager' street.
Anyway, a statue of General Meagher on his horse, brandishing a saber, stands in front of the state capitol building in Helena. Here is a bit about him quoted from a Montana history book by Michael Malone and Richard Roeder.
"Amidst the chaos of the closing months of the Civil War and the aftermath of Lincoln's assassination, faraway places like Montana were largely forgotten in Washington. Key federal positions in Montana remained unfilled for months. During its first 16 months, Montana had no territorial secretary. Since only the secretary could sign federal warrants, this meant that no federal funds could be spent. .... When a secretary, Thomas F. Meagher, finally arrived in late September 1865, Edgerton hurriedly turned over his duties to him as acting governor and left for the East.... thus after a brief and hectic term, Montana's first chief executive left the scene never to return.
Edgerton's absence led to one of the most chaotic periods in Montana's political history. At the center of the chaos and controversy stood the territorial secretary and acting governor, Thomas Francis Meagher. This colorful character, whose equestrian statue now stands before the state capitol, was a brash adventurer who came here with an international reputation and an appetite for even greater glories. Descended from a wealthy Irish family, young Meagher became a leading figure in the Irish independence movement, a noted orator, and an ally of the famous Daniel O'Connell. He narrowly escaped execution by the British because of his revolutionary activities and was banished instead to the penal colony of Tasmania. After escaping from Tasmania, Meagher came eventually to New York, and he soon rose to prominence there as a leader among the thousands of Irish immigrants in that city. During the Civil War, he became famous as the organizing commmander and general of the Irish Brigade. This hard charging outfit saw fierce action at such battles as Malvern Hill and Antietam...practically annihilated in the suicide charge at Fredericksburg...
During the spring of 1867, attacks by Sioux Indians along the Bozeman Rode touched off a classic panic in Montana. Especially in the well settled Gallatin Valley, the fear spread that the Sioux would sweep westward along Bozeman's route and terrorize the Montana settlements. Although groundless, public fears heightened when John Bozeman himself was killed, reportedly by Indians, along the Yellowstone River in April. Besieged by pleas for military protection, acting Governor Meagher asked for and finally received federal authority to raise a militia force to guard the Gallatin and surrounding areas.
Affairs quickly got out of hand, as they often did in such situations. Meagher raised an army of over six hundred volunteers, heavily staffed with high ranking officers. The army encamped in the Gallatin Valley and along the upper Yellowstone, but encountered very few Indians. By the time the "army" was finally disbanded, to the great anger of some of the troops, who wished to remain on the federal payroll, it had run up bills totalling $1,100,000! Realizing that local merchants had drastically overcharged the militia, the federal government refused to pay the full amount of the bills, and finally settled with local creditors for $513,000. It proved to be a senseless and very expensive "war".
... On July 1, 1867, while in Fort Benton awaiting the arrival of his wife and an arms shipment by steamboat, Meagher mysteriously disappeared from the docked boat on which he was staying. He apparently fell from the vessel during the night and drowned, but his body was never recovered. Whether accident, suicide, or even murder was involved, no one knows to this day. General Meagher remains a hero to the Irish of his homeland, and the thousands of Irish who came to the mining towns of Montana celebrated his memory with the impressive statue that now stands before the state capitol."
Paddy's Lamentation as recorded by Mary Black
chorus
Here's you boys, now take my advice
To America I'll have yous not be comin'
There is nothin' here but war where the murderin' cannons roar
And I wish I was at home in dear old Dublin.
1.Well, it's by the hush, me boys, and sure that's to hold your noise
And listen to poor Paddy's sad narration.
I was by hunger pressed and in poverty distressed
So I took a thought I'd leave the Irish nation.
chorus
2. Well, I sold me horse and cow, my little pigs and sow
My little plot of land I soon did part with
And me sweetheart Biddy McGee I'm afraid I'll never see
For I left her there that morning broken hearted.
chorus
3. Well, meself and a hundred more, to America sailed o'er
Our fortunes to be made we were thinkin'
When we got to Yankee land, they shoved a gun into our hands
Sayin', "Paddy, you must go and fight for Lincoln."
chorus
4. General Meagher to us he said, if you get shot or lose a leg
Every mother's son of yous will get a pension.
Well, myself I lost me leg, they gave me a wooden peg
And by God this is the truth to you I mention.
chorus
-------------Another note about 'yous' instead of 'you'. In the little town of Walkerville at the Butte mines, people said 'yous' instead of 'you'. When I was in the 4th grade, we had a student teacher who was from Walkerville. He was quite a comic, and would say 'da big cheese' and 'yous' to make us laugh. Quite a break from the strict nuns.
Alice in Montana