PAT WORKS ON THE RAILWAY

Created on 08/08/2002
Latest update on 02/07/2022

Artist: American Ballad Singers
Author: traditional
Label: Victor
Year: 1941

Oldest official release (on 78RPM-album Two Centuries of American Folk Songs - see also: Kentucky Moonshiner) of a song dating back another century. In the 1840s Ireland suffered the worst famine coupled to mass emigration, first to Britain, later also to the US. To fill in the ranks of the lowest and hardest jobs available, like building railroads. The Union Pacific Railway Company was laying out the first transcontinental railroad in America in 1863. Many of these section gangs were all Irish. Some gangs were even Irish speaking exclusively. Irish traveller Joseph Bryan Geoghegan had Paddy Works On The Railway on his repertoire since 1854, sheetmusic versions were published in Boston around that time and Cecil Sharp collected a version in Somerset in 1919 by John Short. Blame Saint Patrick, the official Saint in Ireland, for Pat or Paddy being such a popular name among Irish. In the late 1920s several cylinder recordings were collected in England among retired seamen and in 1938 Alan Lomax recorded two versions for the Library of Congress.

Covers:

1951:

Sam Eskin [as Poor Paddy Works On The Railway for Folkways]

1951:

Ewan MacColl [idem; first British release for Topic]

1954:

Pete Seeger

1957:

Weavers [as Fi-Li-Mi-Oo-Re-Ay]

1958:

Cisco Houston

1963:

Barbara Moncure [as The Bluestone Quarries on Folksongs Of The Catskills]

1964:

Spinners [as Fi-Li-Mi-Oo-Re-Ay]

1967:

Dubliners [as Poor Paddy On The Railway]

1972:

Clancy Brothers

1976:

Wolfe Tones [as Paddy On The Railway]

1984:

Pogues

1996:

John Stewart

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

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