Think this song is in Norman Buchan's 101 Scottish Songs or The Scottish Folk Singer and it will probably have some info -- I don't have time to check at the moment!
However, I'll try to answer some of your Qs aff the tap i' ma heid (off the top of my head)
1,2 Hogmanay at the Glesca Fair - is just a joke, like a children's rhyme where things are all upside down. This is a bunch of drunks havin' a weekend on the skite -- sounds like some / all of them were sogers (soldiers) -- "regiment at Barnhill" - that barracks is long gone, last remnants of name is a railway station on north side of Glasgow! So it will be quite old- - unless it was a music hall song.
Wandering through the Broomielaw in rain and sleet etc - - again a joke, it was probably in the summer at Glasgow Fair -- last fortnight of July. (Each area had its own fair fortnight when the factories and shipyards shut up shop - Clydebank is first fortnight of July I think etc)
3 "Got the length of Rothesay-O" just means they travelled the distance to Rothesay.If you were discussing a journey that is quite a common expression, "we got the length of Inverness before we had to charge up the electric car"(!)
4 The drunk guy is challenging someone/anyone to a fight - think back to the school playground, a circle of watchers and "eggers on" surround the two pugilists. He is asking them to clear the room to make space then form a ring within which the fight (I'll fecht ye) will take place (in the version below it is I'll kill ye!)
The Comet was the first steamboat, invented/constructed by James Watt at Port Glasgow -- I can't remember the date but I think people were still travelling across the Firth of Clyde in pre-steam days on sailboats -- tho probably Rothesay, Dunoon etc had not developed into holiday towns till after the establishment of steam travel!If William Watt was born in 1792 he would only be 8 in 1800 so unlikely to be writing that type of song till perhaps 1822 or later.
Last Hogmanay at the Glesca Fair,
There was me, masel' and sev'ral mair
And we a' resolved tae hae a terr,
And spend the nicht in Rothesay-O
We wandered thro' the Broomielaw,
Thro' wind and rain and hail and snaw
An' at forty meen-its efter twa '
we got the length o' Rothesay-O!
A-hirrum a doo a doo a day A-hirrum a doo ma daddy-O
A-hirrum a doo a doo a day - The day we went tae Rothesay-O!
A sodger lad ca'd Ru'glen Wull,
Wha's regiment's lying at Barnhill
Gaed aff wi a tanner tae get a gill
In a public hoose in Rothesay-O
His regimentals done the trick -
He was apprehended gey and quick
Baith him and the whisky got the nick,
On the day we went tae Rothesay-O
Says Rookery Tam "A'm gaun tae sing!"
Says I "Ye'll dae nae sich a thing"
Wi' that he yells oot "Mak a ring,
An' I'll kill ye a' in Rothesay-O"
Says I "Sit doon and go tae.... "
Well, the name o the place I will not tell,
Says he " Sit doon and go yersel, -
An' say ye cam frae Rothesay-O"
In search o ludgins we did slide,
To find a place whaur we could bide;
There was eichty-twa o us inside
A single end in Rothesay-O!
We a' lay doon tae tak oor ease,
When one o' the boys began tae sneeze
An' he waukened hauf a million fleas
in a single end in Rothesay-O!
There was several different kinds o' bugs,
Some had feet like dyers clugs
An they sat oan the bed and cocked their lugs
An' cried "Hurrah for Rothesay-O!"
Says I "I think it's time tae slope!"
So we went and jined the Band o' Hope
Bit the polis widnae let us stoap
Anither hoor in Rothesay-O