098 - The Gals O' Dublin Town ( A )


Old Capstan song with other titles: "Harp without the Crown" or "The Shenandoah". Miss Joanna Colcord gives it as a forebitter, and she says it was sung to a tune almost the same as that of "The Banks of Newf'n'land".
The "Harp without the Crown" is a phrase hearkening back to rebellious times in Ould Ireland. According to Miss Colcord, Captain Jim Murphy of the "Shenandoah", in actual fact, flew the Irish flag beneath the American one aboard his ship.

Stan Hugill gives us as a capstan shanty, but because they are two versions, one I will do recreate as forebitter another as capstan shanty. Both versions come from Stan Hugill's shipmate Paddy Delaney (ex-blackball line sailor). So this version will be reconstructed as a forebitter. I try to recreate this song from hearted Stan Hugill's version from the album "Chants des Marins Anglais" (1992).

"Shanties from the Seven Seas" by Stan Hugill (1st ed p 141).




The Gals O' Dublin Town ( A )


Naow, 'tis of a famous Yankee ship, to New York we wuz bound,
An'our cap'-n be-in' an Oirish man, belongin' to Dubalin Town,
   - Hurrah! Hurrah! for the gals o' Dub-a-lin Town,
   - Hurrah for the bonnie green flag an' the Harp without the Crown!

                                          *2*
An' when he gazes on that land, that town of high renown,
Oh, it's away the green burgee and the Harp without the Crown.

                                          *3*
'Twas on the seventeenth o' March, we arrived in New York Bay,
Our Capen bein' an Irishman must celebrate the day.

                                          *4*
With the Stars an' Stripes 'way high aloft, an' flutterin' all around,
But underneath his monkey-gaff flew the Harp without the Crown.

                                          *5*
Now we're bound for 'Frisco, boys, an' things is runnin' wild,
The officers an' men dead drunk, around the decks they pile.

                                          *6*
But by termorrer mornin', boys, we'll work without a frown,
For on board the saucy 'Shenandoah' flies the Harp without the Crown!