Barry, you are, I fear, unintentionally helping to propagate a misquotation (doesn't really qualify as a mondegreen imo)

I know the verse you quote above is as it appears in the DT, but we all know how inaccurate the majority of DT lyrics are (eg. Dougie McLean's "coattails" were still flying somewhere in the wind last time I checked)

I would bet a pound to a penny that what Dominic Behan actually wrote was

"I've cursed the day that I went away
To work on the hydro dams
Our sweat and tears, our hopes and fears
Bound up in shuttering jambs"

That makes a great deal of sense, whereas the verse as it appears in the DT makes no sense whatsoever

I have taken the liberty of altering Behan's incorrect spelling of "jambs", as he very likely thought, as would 99% of the workforce on any site, that "jams " was indeed the correct spelling.