Here's the version from Ives:

LAST WINTER WAS A HARD ONE
[When McGuiness Gets a Job]

Last winter was a hard one, Mrs. Reilly did you say?
Sure it is meself that's known it for many's the long day.
For your old man's not the only one that stood beside the wall,
For my old man McGuiness, sure he had no job at all.
The politicians promised him work upon the boulevard,
Working with a pick and shovel, shovelling dirt upon the cars.
Six months ago they promised him that work he'd surely get,
But believe me, my good woman, they're promising that yet!

CHORUS:
But it's cheer up, Mrs. Reilly, don't give away to the blues.
Soon you and I will cut a shine in bonnets and new shoes.
For meself I'm done a-sighing No more I'll sigh nor sob,
But I'll wait 'til times get better and McGuiness gets a job.


Springtime now is coming - sure there'll be lots of work.
McGuiness he'll go to his trade; sure he's a mason's clerk.
You should see him climb the ladder as nimble as a fox;
Sure he's the lad can handle that old three-cornered box.
The boss he's always shouting, "Hi there, don't you stop!
Keep your eyes turned upward, Pat, and let no mortar drop."
But my old man is careful. Sure nothing he lets fall,
And Divil a word he has to say to your old man at all.
CHORUS

The Eye-talians, Divil bless them! Why don't they stay at home?
For we've enough of our own sort to ate up all our own.
They swarm like bees in summer, from foreign lands they stray;
The contractors they have thousands at forty cents a day.
They work along the railroad shovelling snow and slush,
But one thing in their favour: EyetalianS never get lush.
They always take their money home, they drink no gin and wine,
And that is more than I can say of your old man and mine.
CHORUS


from Drive Dull Care Away: Folksongs from Prince Edward Island by Edward D. "Sandy" Ives, page 111
Singer: Wesley Smity, July 15, 1963