These are the notes for Rambling Irishman for a proposed collection of Travellers songs.
Jim Carroll

Rambling Irishman.   (Roud 360)
Rec. from Andy Cash.

For I am a rambling Irishman and I'll travel the wide world o'er
In search of an occupation boys, like what I was before,   
I joined a resolution and I thought it my newest plan
For to take a trip to Americay to view the happy land.

When I landed in Phillidelphy the old girls they jumped over joy.
Says one of them to the other, there goes an Irish boy
With his ramsack on his shoulder and a shillelagh in his hand,
Saying, how would you like to roam the world with the heart of an Irishman.

Sure she falls to me and she spoke to me and she caught me by the hand
She brings me to a big hotel, it's there we spent the night,
She never took her two eyes o'er me when on the floor I did stand
She run home and she told her mother she was in love with an Irishman.

Oh daughter dear, oh daughter, what a foolish thing to do,
To fall in love with an Irishman, a Paddy you never knew.
For hold your tongue now mother, she says, I'll do the best I can,
Sure there's friendship and good nature in the heart of an Irishman.

This song has appeared in many guises; Rambling or Roving Irishman, Peddler Man, Journeyman or Journey Boy, Navvy, or Navigator, and can be located in Exeter, Brighton, Frisco, Pennsylvania or, as here, Philadelphia.
A Birmingham broadside entitled "The Lancashire Lads" makes the hero a soldier, in other texts he becomes "The Rambling Sailor", but nearly all the broadsides give him as "The Roving Journeyman" and it is as such that the song became an established favourite among English Gypsies. When it crossed to America he became a "Rambling Gambler" and in the Ozarks a version gives him as   "A Guerrilla Man".
The Sam Henry Collection includes a wonderful parody entitled "Neuve Chappelle", after a battle in the First World War.   It was taken down from a street singer, an ex-private, in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers; and is described as;

"…. a favourite song of the Inniskillings or The Irish Rifles….            
commonly sung when leaving the trenches………".

For when we landed in Belgium, the girls all danced with joy,
Says one unto the other, here comes an Irish boy.
Then it's fare thee well, dear mother, we'll do the best we can,
For you all know well that Neuve Chappelle was won by an Irishman.

Chorus
Then here's good luck to the Rifles, the Inniskillings too
The Royal Irish Fusiliers and the Royal Artillery too,
For side by side they fought and died as noble heroes can,
And you all know well that Neuve Chappelle was won by an Irishman.

Says Von Kluck unto The Kaiser, what are we going to do?
We're going to meet those Irishmen, the men we never knew.
Says the Kaiser unto old Von Kluck, We'll do the best we can,
But I'm telling you true that Waterloo was won by an Irishman.

Reference
The Roving Journeyman                       The Willett Family (LP record)
An American Songbag                         Carl Sandburg
Ozark Folk Songs                               Vance Randolph (ed),
Sam Henry's Songs Of The People.      Gale Huntington (ed.).