John,
It really isn't a case of preserving the songs without change - nobody has suggested that for one minute; it is a matter of making sense of them.
It does not make sense - not to me anyway - to repeat the first verse of a narrative song when you have come to the end of the story - it is building in an anti-climax.
It can possibly work with non-narrative songs, but even there it is unnecessary if the song is satisfyingly long enough.
Somebody has already suggested that the reason it happens is that the songs are not long enough - I might go with that for one with only a couple of verses, but short songs are usually short for a creative purpose unless you have an incomplete text, than repeating a verse doesn't make a happorth of difference.
I joined this discussion to point out that it seldom, if ever, happened in the tradition - among the thousand-odd songs we recorded from field singers I can't recall a single case of it happening.
As far as I can see, it is a revival practice; a theatrical device for a massed audience.
I neither approve or disapprove of it, I just find it unnecessary.
Hi Phil
Not sure how this fits into the topic - hope we're not treading on too many toes here.
What recording were you listening to?
I've been researching this song over the last few weeks.
The only version from Clare is the one we recorded from Packie Russell, the old concertina player from Doolin, in North Clare - he didn't have a complete set of it.
I yesterday had a note from Roy Harris who confirmed that he learned his version from Brian Blanchard.
Tho only versions from oral tradition I could trace were Packie's and one from Robert Cinnamond of Gleneavy in County Antrim - I have no idea where Brian Blanchard's Harry Boardman's or Lois Killen's came from.
This is the note I finally decided on for the website.

Tom Tadger (Roud 3080) Packie Russell
While this is sung by several of the younger generation of singers in England and Ireland, there are very few examples of it having been found in the old oral traditions.
In 1955 the BBC recorded a version from Robert Cinnamond of Glenavy, County Antrim with the title 'The Beggarman of County Down', apart from this, there are no references to the song from a source singer, either recorded or in print, though there are similarities to other songs of an amorous itinerant; see: 'Donnelly' (Roud 836), versions of which we recorded in Miltown Malbay, Fanore, and from Tipperary Travelling woman Mary Delaney. Packie told us he believed the song to be connected to the 1798 uprising in Mayo, when the French sent a fleet to assist the struggle for independence; he thought it to be an allegorical reference to inviting strangers into your home. There is little, if any information to confirm this, but it's an interesting thought.
This was how the song was sung around the folk clubs in Manchester in the mid 1960s; from the singing of the late Harry Boardman:

Tom Padgett

Of all the trades going it's in the begging I take great delight.
For my rent it is paid as I lay down my bags for the night.
And my rent it is paid as I take a long stick in my hand.
And at night I will please the fair maidens as best as I can.

Oh, I walked the long day 'til I came to some rich farmer's house;
and I knocked on the door like some poor fool left lately without -
without eating or drinking, for twenty long hours or more.
And I said, 'Kind madam, will you pray for and remember the poor?'

'If it's alms that you want, you shall get them old man,' she said.
But before she gave pennies, she ran to her mother upstairs.
'Oh mammy, oh mammy! There is a strange man in the hall!
Stay close to your chamber, for I fear he will ravish us all!'

But her mother did scuff her, and call her a silly young fool.
To have any such notion, about that poor man in the hall.
For his clothes were in tatters, and his britches torn behind and before.
And his doldrums (sic?) hung down a good fourteen long inches or more.

'Oh Tom Padget,' she said, 'Why don't you go and work for your bread?
For some rich farmer and be decently clothed and fed.'
'To plough and sow madam, I'm afraid I have but little skill.
But I'll plough that small furrow that lies at the foot of your hill.'

'Oh Tom Padget!' she said, 'Now if you and I could but agree;
I would make you the steward, of all of my lands for to be.
And we'd eat at one table, and we'd sleep on a soft bed of down.
If only I could have you, Tom Padget of Killaloe town.'

And of all the trades going it's in the begging I take great delight.
For my rent it is paid as I lay down my bags for the night.
And my rent it is paid as I take a long stick in my hand.
And at night I will please the fair maidens as best as I can.
Cap'n
This really is the last thing I have to say to you - I will not be part of your vandalising any more threads with your nasty, small-minded vendettas.
I think it was you who mentioned kettles being called black.
We all contribute to these threads to the best of our abilities and try to make up for our ignorance and our shortcomings the best we can.
I'm sure you realise this far better than most people - over and out.
Jim Carroll