From the booklet accompanying the "There's gangs of them digging" CD:

"This song was colected by Sam Henry in Tobermore in 1938; it is listed in his collection as No. 748 and is titled as "The Magherafelt Hiring Fair". He said that at the time he collected it the song was at least 150 years old and that the diet of sowans and eels would establish the locality of the song,by this I presume that he was assuming that the listener would know that Magherafelt, being so close to Lough Neagh, would have a plentiful supply of eels from its famous eel fishery. Sowans was an article of diet in common use in Ireland. It consisted of farinasceous matter extracted from the bran or husks of oats by steeping in water, allowed to ferment slightly and prepared by boiling. Except for the first line of the first verse, the first line of each of the following verses is spoken.

The only other person I have heard singing this song was Valerie Baillie when she sang it as amemebr of 'The Irish Country Four' on one of the old Topic Records, which was recorded in 1971. I have never heard the song sung at a singing session. THe song takes into consideration all the various requirements that would be in the mind of a labourer lookig to hire, such as what wages he would have, how he would be fed, and where he would sleep. He certainly did much better than the spailpin that hired to the Galbally Farmer in Tippereary. Unlike Sam Henry's very proper ending with the marriage of the couple, in some of the other versions of the song, when the labourer declined to sleep with the weans, the woman of the house did indeed offer her the comfort of her own bed.

While I have only heard one version in Ireland, there are several versions that have been collected in England and Scotland. Peter Kennedy recorded one from Dicky Lashbrook in Devon in 1950 called "Bargain with me" or "Billy Boy". THe first publication of the song was in Peter Buchan's "Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland in 1828, although the song is much older than the date of publication. The different versions of the song vary in the directness of their sexual references and bawdy content."

That should be enough information to keep you going for a while. If you want any further information I suggest you buy the CD, which as you might expect is well worth the asking Price. More info at www.daisydiscs.com.