Lyr Req: Tipperary Recruiting Sergeant

Subject: Tipperary Recruiting Sergeant
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 09:34 PM

This song, "The Tipperary Recruiting Sergeant", gets a mention in a thread about Arthur McBride - in a quote from some notes by Frank Harte. It's evidently a different song from Arthur McBride, and was popular in the anti-conscription campaign in the Great War in Ireland.

So it'd be interesting to know more about it and have the words. Any volunteers?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Tipperary Recruiting Sergeant
From: masato sakurai
Date: 04 Mar 02 - 11:06 PM

Isn't it the same song as "Tipperary Recruiting Song"? The lyrics are HERE and HERE. Info from The Traditional Ballad Index is:

Tipperary Recruiting Song, The
DESCRIPTION: "'Tis now we'd want to be wary, boys, The recruiters are out in Tipperary, boys...." The Irish youths are advised to avoid the British sergeants and the free drinks they offer. They are reminded of all the harm John Bull has done in the past
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1962
KEYWORDS: Ireland recruiting drink soldier
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
PGalvin, p. 88, "Tipperary Recruiting Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Notes: It is not immediately evident what time period this song refers to. The British desperation for soldiers might seem to imply World War I -- but in 1916 Britain instituted the draft (in England; it took a little longer in Ireland); the recruiting sergeant was a thing of the past. So an earlier period is indicated. - RBW
File: PGa088

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Tipperary Recruiting Sergeant
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Mar 02 - 10:54 AM

Thanks a lot.

No, they never managed to bring in conscription in Ireland. Opposition to attempts to bring it in was a big organising issue for the Republicans in the latter half of the Great War.

I am sure this would have been sung around that time - especially with the lines

"There's never a one will handle a gun
Except for the green in Tipperary boys.

But the words, especially the second link, imply that it would have been older than that.

Subject: Lyr Add: TIPPERARY RECRUITING SONG (Trad. Irish)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Mar 02 - 09:00 AM

Lyrics and commentary copied from http://www.kinglaoghaire.com/ballads/inball2.html

TIPPERARY RECRUITING SONG
(Traditional Irish)

'Tis now we'd want to be wary, boys.
The recruiters are out in Tipperary, boys.
If they offer a glass, we'll wink as they pass.
We're old birds for chaff in Tipperary, boys.

Then hurrah for the gallant Tipperary boys!
Although we're "cross and contrary" boys,
There's never a one will handle a gun
Except for the Green and Tipperary, boys.

Now mind what John Bull did here, my boys:
In the days of our Famine and fear, my boys,
He burned and sacked, he plundered and racked,
Old Ireland of Irish to clear, my boys.

Now Bull wants to pillage and rob, my boys,
And put the proceeds in his fob, my boys,
But let each Irish blade just stick to his trade
And let Bull do his own dirty job, my boys.

So never to 'list be in haste, my boys,
Or a glass of drugged whiskey to taste, my boys.
If to India you go it's to grief and to woe
And to rot and to die like a beast, my boys.

But now he is beat for men, my boys.
His army is getting so thin, my boys,
With the fever and ague, the sword and the plague,
O the devil a fear that he'll win, my boys.

Then mind not the nobblin' old schemer, boys.
Though he says that he's richer than Damer, boys,
Though he bully and roar, his power is o'er
And his black heart will shortly be tamer, boys.

Now, isn't Bull peaceful and civil, boys,
In his mortal distress and his evil, boys?
But we'll cock each caubeen when his sergeants are seen
And we'll tell them to go to the devil, boys.

Then hurrah for the gallant Tipperary boys!
Although we're "cross and contrary" boys,
There's never a one will handle a gun
Except for the Green and Tipperary, boys.

January 7, 1868: A British military force under Sir Robert Napier invades Abyssinia in order to compel King Theodore to release the imprisoned British consul. Once again Irishmen are called upon to die for the Empire. After a short campaign - victory. Prime Minister Disraeli: "He (Napier) led the elephants of Asia, bearing the artillery of Europe, over broken passes which might have startled the trapper of Canada and appalled the hunter of the Alps... and we find the standard of St. George hoisted upon the mountains of Rasselas".

John Clark Ridpath, writing in his "Life And Times Of Gladstone" (1895), picks up the story: "Thus much for Abyssinia. What of Ireland? In that country things went from bad to worse. There had never been peace. For fully six hundred years of political connection between Ireland and England there had been in the former country only distress, alienation, and the ever-burning spirit of resentment and insurrection... But it is in the character of Great Britain to pursue toward her subject peoples a long course of oppression and spoilation, and then, when her subjects, thus wronged, turn upon her, she calls them rebels, revolutionists, incendiaries and assassins".

Caubeen = cap, Damer = John Damer, wealthy 18th-century English nobleman.