"10,000 Miles Away" was a big hit on the London music hall stage but it started out its life as an Irish street song in the early 19th century and went to sea too (according to Stan Hugill) both as a ballad and a capstan shanty. John Doyle backs me with guitar and bouzouki.
The Irish Tradition (Billy McComiskey, Brendan Mulvihill, Andy O'Brien) was America's finest Irish band during the 1970s and they made 3 LPs (2 for Green Linnet and an earlier private label disc) but you probably haven't heard "The Lily of the West," which I recorded with them in 1982. This is from Irish Ballads & Songs of the Sea, Folk-Legacy CD124 (www.folklegacy.com).
Mick Moloney and Lou Killen had never met until the day we recorded "Paddy West." Mr. West was an Irish boarding house keeper in Liverpool during the second half of the 19th century. Paddy's claim was that he would teach all the "lingo" necessary for a landsman to bluff his way into a job on a ship. Also on Irish Ballads & Songs of the Sea.
"Adieu to Old Ireland" was an old Irish broadside ballad sung by New Englanders in the timber woods milieu. This version was recorded from Sadie Syphers Harvey of Houlton, Maine by Helen Hartness Flanders. Deirdre Murtha and Bonnie Milner of The Johnson Girls join me. This is from "Irish Songs from Old New England," Folk-Legacy CD132.
Lots of Famine escapees migrated via Liverpool but a good few didn't have the money to continue to the United States once they arrrived on Merseyside. The story of "Bold McCarthy" the stowaway is, no doubt, only too true. Tim Collins from the Kilfenora Ceili Band plays concertina with Mick Moloney mandolin and Gabriel Donahue guitar. I had seen this one in books on many an occasion but Bruce Scott was the first person I've ever heard sing it.
"Larry Maher's Big 5-Gallon Jar" is about a notorious shanghaier in New York City during the 1850s. The chorus and concertinas are by Stormalong John of Liverpool; Bob Conroy of New York plays 5-string banjo. This is from a broadside printed by Henry De Marsan about 1861. Recorded live at the Mersey River Festival.