Hi!

Back about 1984, I had a sales job and covered the Northeastern USA & Canada. Every time I would go to Boston, I would look up Shay Walker. Shay is from Dublin. After the session, he and I bought a lagre bag of potato crisp (USA: chips) and went over to the harbor in Boston behind the aquarium. We had been singing and talking about songs all night and continued.

Shay asked if I knew "Billy O'Shay." I said no and he continued that he didn't either but that Clive Collins used to sing it when he lived in Boston. (I have never met Clive Collins. He is from Birmingham, England, I believe. He recorded with the Christy Moore band that became Planxty on the LP "Prosperous.") Shay had only the first verse and sang it. I had no tape recorder with me.

I liked what I heard and ran the fragment past a lot of people over the years in hopes of getting the rest. I asked Stan Hugill about it the day he came to our plkace for lunch; I asked Frank Harte about one night in London. No luck.

After about 12 years, I just gave up and took the little bit I remembered, put an extra chorus to it, made up a few extra verses and added some stock Black Ball couplets to make a complete shanty.

The Ballyliffin story is as Martin described it. As a matter of course, I always ran "Billy" past a Dublin singer when I met one.

The version George gives above is pretty much the same as the one Tom Munnelly sang for me except for the addition of the "Flynn" couplet and the "clap" couplet which I gather is a corruption of the one Tom sang:

"Now," says he, "I've a cure for that." Fall....... "And here for a start is a dose of the cat." Fall.......

"Cat" would refer to "cat o' nine tails" or flogging and I think that's more in keeping with meaning of the song than buggery.

I am happy through my dogged curiosity and damned good luck (facilitated through the very kind and helpful Martin Ryan) that I was able to help ring "Billy" back from the depths.

All the best,
Dan