True , but also from afficianados of MacAlpine's Fusileers. I don't want to go into the "what is a folk song" argument here , but Fusileers does seem to me to be a genuine example of a song taken up by and sung by the people it was written about. According to my father , the men working on the tunnels "would sing bits and pieces of it while they worked". He was adamant btw that Dominic Behan didn't and couldn't have been the composer.
It mightn't come across in the song so much ,but the Irish actually had something of an ambiguous attitude towards MacAlpines . Along with natural class antipathies went a measure of respect , because at one time MacAlpine's was the only big contractor in England that would employ the Irish..They employed large numbers buildng the huge exhibition centre at Earl's Court in the thirties . I was wondering whether the Irish population in close-by Hammersmith would have originally come from that job or if their connection there went back further..
Ultan , I'm living in Dublin now , but otherwise I'd have been pleased to meet up with you in Hammersmith . As far as your book is concerned , I thought you circled the square very successfully indeed – the Gobban Saor himself couldn't have done any better.