Dubliners – The Dublin Fusiliers

(Spoken:) ‘Twas in the year of ‘thirty-nine,When the sky was full of lead
When Hitler was heading for Poland and Paddy, for Holyhead.
Come all you pincher laddies and you long-distance men
Don’t ever work for McAlpine for Wimpey, or John Laing
You’ll stand behind a mixer until your skin is turned to tan
And they’ll say, Good on you, Paddy with your boat-fare in your hand.

Oh, the craic was good in Cricklewood and they wouldn’t leave the Crown

With glasses flying and Biddys crying ‘Cause Paddy was going to town.
Oh mother dear, I’m over here and I’m never coming back
What keeps me here is the reek o’ beer the ladies and the craic.
I come from county Kerry the land of eggs and bacon
And if you think I’ll eat your fish ‘n’ chips then you’re sadly mistaken.

As down the Glen came Mcalpine’s men with their shovels slung behind them.
It was in the pub that they drank their sub or down in the spike you’ll find them.
We sweated blood and we washed down mud with quarts and pints of beer.
But now we’re on the road again with McAlpines Fusiliers.

I stripped to the skin with Darky Finn down upon the Isle of Grain,
With Horseface Toole I learned the rule, no money if you stop for rain.
For McAlpine’s god is a well filled hod with your shoulders cut to bits and seared
And woe to he who looks for tea with McAlpines Fusiliers.

I remember the day that the Bear O’Shea fell into a concrete stair,
What Horseface said, when he saw him dead, well it wasn’t what the rich call prayers.
“I’m a navvy short,” was his one retort that reached unto my ears,
When the going is rough, well you must be tough, with McAlpine’s Fusiliers.

I’ve worked till the sweat near had me beat with Russian, Czech and Pole,
At shuttering jams up in the Hydro Dams, or underneath the Thames in a hole,
I grafted hard and I got me cards and many a ganger’s fist across me ears.
If you pride your life, don’t join, by Christ, with McAlpine’s Fusiliers.