Hello--I'm working on background essays for the "Letters from Ireland" suite arranged by Mark Brymer which includes "Lanigan's Ball." I'm trying to figure out what Jeremy Lanigan is doing when he "battered away 'till he hadn't a shillin.'" Does that just mean that he did hard manual labor until he was rescued by the death of his father and his inheritance? But if his father owned a farm and had money, why was his son broke? Is there some hint here that Jeremy is kind of a ne'er-do-well who only comes into money when his father isn't around to keep him away from it? Sorry if this is an obvious question--just trying to make the words clear to the singers.

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