I've taken the liberty of "borrowing" the relevant part of Roly Brown's Musical Traditons article, omitting the references:

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We come, then, to Little Jimmy Murphy. This song, in its guise in English manuscripts, is, perhaps, the most unusual of the songs with a 1798 connection that have emerged. There are three versions; from Jack Barnard and a Mr J Thomas, both noted by Cecil Sharp; and a version sent to Sharp which was supplied by a Dr John Taylor who recorded it from 'a soldier'.24 Jack Barnard's text begins as follows:

As I was a walking
There was a row making
Poor Jimmy Murphy
Was the first man was taken

The refrain sets a tone paralleled in all other examples of the song …

For he's a rare old bonny lad now
From East to Don Patherick
To entice poor Jimmy Murphy
On the green mossy banks
On the John Skipper the monkey frisky
Fair ra lu ra li do
Fair ra lu ra li do

The rest of the narrative indicates that Jimmy Murphy will 'ride through the city' with people crying 'pity' and that he will be hanged 'not for sheep stealing' but for 'kissing of the pretty girls … '. The other manuscript versions are very similar. In particular, the unusual type of refrain, which is mirrored in all versions, is worth a second glance because it must impose a peculiar musical measure in each case. Mr Thomas' refrain is:

? any bonny lassie from the east of Dun-patrick
Right down to the green mossy banks
Of Saint Mary Ward ?
Save poor Jimmy Skiddymouth
Ri fal the diddle I-do
Ri titty-fal Lie
Ri fal the diddle I-do
Ri titty-fal di

The Taylor version has:

For 'tis a harrow bonny lassie
From the east to Don Patrick
Enticed poor Jimmy Murphy
From the green mossy banks
Jimminy don dimminy
Monkey whisky bull the rainstorm ? …

but here, Sharp's notation of the tune-line gave out at 'Enticed'. In this version the pretty girl is named as 'Miss Dealing'.
The necessity for tune and text to preserve the nonsense syllables has led to the suggestion that the piece may even have been used for a children's game and because these nonsense lines appear in all known versions, outright dismissal of such a notion is not an option. The verse-texts are very similar where the narrative is concerned.

At the same time, although the action is merely designated as a 'row' in the Barnard version, there are more Irish specifics in both the Thomas version - where the row takes place in Killarney - and in the Taylor version - where Kilkenny is cited.

The final stanza in the Thomas version is:

Jimmy Murphy is hung
And his troubles are over
And all the pretty lasses
They covered him with clover

There might just be a reference here to the practice at the funerals of prominent or notorious persons such as the Tyburn hanged where young girls dressed in white handed flowers to the condemned.25 How notorious, then, was 'Jimmy Murphy'? Is this figure meant to be a reference to Father Murphy (below)?

A fourth version of the song, this time from A P Graves in Ireland, also has Kilkenny as reference (and a separate broadside on the career of Father Murphy, the leader of the Wexford insurgents, has a line, 'We lost our lives in Kilkenny'). The 'crime' is still to do with kissing a pretty girl, named here as 'Kate Wheelan'. Graves has 'We're far upon the last now' and adds, in brackets, as an alternative to 'now', the word, 'rowt?' - presumably, 'rout'. Graves tells us that his version was obtained from the Town Crier in Harlech, Wales, though he, in turn, had got it from a ballad-seller in Liverpool in 1840: this the earliest date known for the appearance of a text and indicating that whatever the predominantly sung legacy as discussed here the piece did at one time exist as a printing (see also below).26

A further clue to transmission is given in a part-version communicated to a Vera Chapman in London 'in her very early childhood, about 1904/5, by an Irish maid, who said that her father, who used to sing this song, had once been asked by a gentleman to sing it into a machine … '. The fragments of text include the refrain:

Is there anybody last heard
From the hills of Dun Path'lick
For Willie ties (dies?) for Jimmy Murphy
From the green mossy banks
Of the Skinamalinktma - hickta - picta - foltheroo …
Down fola - a doodle - di - do
Down fol - la - la - day (Repeat).

No tune is given. We should not, incidentally, overlook the idea in this version that it is somebody else, 'Willie', not the leader of the insurrection, who died; but this is perhaps just an example of how text may have wavered during transmission.27
There is a stanza and chorus from Harry Scott (Bedfordshire) where the nonsense lines are maintained and although this gives us a notion of a continued interest does not otherwise advance our knowledge of the song and its genesis.28 Similarly, there is a version from Yorkshire where the setting is Kilkenny, the crime one of kissing all the 'bonny little lasses' and the nonsense lines are preserved.29

In view of these half dozen examples, the song can be seen to have achieved a certain popularity in England, however obscure its origins may have been for English singers.

In Ireland again, the late Frank Harte recorded a version and he expanded the 1798 connection …

… it has been suggested to me that the reference in the last verse to Kate Whelan:

"Now Jimmy Murphy was hanged not for sheep stealing
But for courting a pretty girl and her name was Kate Whelan"
could be interpreted as a reference to Ireland as Cathleen ni Houlihan.30

One might add that although tunes vary in certain measures, there is something of a similarity amongst the English manuscript versions and those from Graves and from Frank Harte where the respective main stanzas are concerned, but that it is well to re-emphasise that the differing choruses do impose their own needs.

American references are to two versions in the Helen Harkness Flanders collection, discovered through title only; to one - again named through the title only - in the Library of Congress collections; and to one fuller version entitled Joe Johnny Murphy as found in Missouri. Here the known pattern survives, the setting being Kilkenny, the crime one of 'courting a pretty girl' whose name was 'Moll Figen", the end of Joe Johnny Murphy mourned by 'ladies and lasses' who 'held' him - presumably surrounded and buried him - in clover. Nonsense lines are prominent.31

The song versions as a whole have a consistency in narrative; always include the nonsense lines; and the same crime.

In no case except the Harlech text are broadsides cited but there is one broadside example, without imprint, extant. It consists of two stanzas only which are commensurate with the sung versions noted above except that the opening lines set the scene as follows:

It was down in the Curragh,
      They a great row was makink … (sic)

And 'Tomorrow' Jimmy Murphy will be hung, as is consistently emphasised in sung versions, not for sheep-stealing 'But for the kissing of a pretty girl'. The lines are mostly reminiscent of the Sharp Barnard version especially in the second stanza:
Oh! Tomorrow he will ride.

      He will ride through the city,
The drums they will beat:
      And the people cry pity
And now he is dead.
      All his troubles are over,
And all the pretty lady [maids?]
      Are now in the clover.
The punctuation is especially loose here and the last two lines appear to muddle the known narrative.32
Finally, the Roud database lists the title if the song as it appeared in a Sanderson (Edinburgh) catalogue - a late addition to the corpus.

On this combined evidence, the appearance and reappearance of Little Jimmy Murphy ought, principally, to be a case of oral transmission and recreation.

Most remarkable of all, though, where textual evidence is available, is, surely, that element of rarity attendant on the song in its being couched in such clearly metaphorical terms: there are, of course, songs with eagles and blackbirds used to represent characters in order for the songs to escape censure - and if, in the case of Little Jimmy Murphy, a contemporary or near-contemporary Irish genesis is a possible factor, the form of the song may have been a way to avoid a charge of sedition.33 The song is thus outstanding in its whole cast, however transformed in the imagination from actuality, and in the preservation of its form.

Here, too, if the significant allusion is to Ireland itself - 'Miss Dealing', 'Kate Wheelan', 'Cathleen ni Houlihan' - it might be reasonable to suggest that no English singer would normally find a need to put together a song in the fashion indicated about a subject as remote as it was; but yet we find all those versions cited above. As in The Croppy Boy, The Rambler from Clare and General Munroe it seems that the narrative element, at least, provided an interest even if the whole experience of the '98 insurrection might well have been minimal in the lives of the singers who entertained the songs.

In broadside form the appearance of text scarce makes a ripple.

Roly Brown - 25.1.06
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FWIW I remain sceptical of any 1798 connection. It is unclear, even, when the association was first made. Certainly Graves doesn't appear to have made the connection. Any ideas?

Regards