True-Born Irish Man (With My Swag All on My Shoulder; The True-Born Native Man)

DESCRIPTION: The singer arrives in (Australia/Philadelphia) from Ireland and sets out to ramble. The girls rejoice at his presence. (A tavern-keeper's daughter) is scolded by her mother for wanting to follow him. She is determined to do so anyway
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1839 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 11(3353))
KEYWORDS: rambling emigration mother courting
FOUND IN: Australia US(MA,MW) Ireland Canada(Mar,Ont) Britain(England(Lond,South),Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (18 citations):
Meredith/Anderson, pp. 62, 122, "Dennis O'Reilly"; p. 138, "Tramp the Bushes of Australia" (3 texts, 3 tunes)
FSCatskills 126, "The Roving Irishman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dean, pp.124-125, "The Roving Irishman" (1 text)
Peters, p. 48, "The Roving Irishman" (1 text, 1 tune, Rickaby's transcription of Dean)
Fahey-Eureka, pp. 76-77, "Denis O'Reilly" (1 text, 1 tune)
GreigDuncan7 1397, "Scrogie's Bell" (1 fragment)
Reeves-Sharp 84, "The Roving Journeyman" (1 text)
Kennedy 353, "The Roving Journeyman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Wiltshire-WSRO Mi 696, "Roving Navigator" (1 text)
Manifold-PASB, pp. 36-37, "With My Swag All on My Shoulder (Denis O'Riley)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Paterson/Fahey/Seal, pp. 125-127, "With My Swag All On My Shoulder" (1 text)
Smith/Hatt, pp. 86-88, "The Rambling Irishman" (1 text)
Creighton-SNewBrunswick 15, "The Roving Journeyman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke-Ontario 37, "The Rambling Irishman" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, DENNOREI* ROVJOURN*
ADDITIONAL: Roger Elbourne, Music and Tradition in Early Industrial Lancashire 1780-1840 (Totowa, 1980), p. 74, "The Roving Journeyman" (1 fragment)
Bill Wannan, _The Australians: Yarns, ballads and legends of the Australian tradition_, 1954 (page references are to the 1988 Penguin edition), pp. 166, "The Diggers" (1 excerpt)
Bill Beatty, _A Treasury of Australian Folk Tales & Traditions_, 1960 (I use the 1969 Walkabout Paperbacks edition), p. 307, "The Diggers" (1 short text)
Roud #360
RECORDINGS:
Paddy Doran, "The Roving Journeyman" (on FSB3)
Tom Willett, "The Roaming Journeyman" (on Voice20)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(3353), "Roving Journeyman," J. Catnach (London), 1813-1838; also Harding B 11(1229), Harding B 11(1479), Johnson Ballads 2807, Harding B 11(3354), Harding B 11(3355), 2806 b.11(33), Firth c.18(249), Harding B 11(3352), Harding B 11(804), 2806 d.31(40), Harding B 11(1228), 2806 b.11(203), Firth c.26(218), Harding B 25(1671), "[The] Roving Journeyman"
LOCSinging, sb40459b, "The Roving Journeyman," J. Andrews (New York), 1853-1859
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Roving Gambler (The Gambling Man)" [Laws H4] (plot)
cf. "The Union Boy" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Neuve Chappelle" (tune, form)
SAME TUNE:
Neuve Chappelle (File: HHH526)
NOTES: The popular version of this piece, "With My Swag All on My Shoulder," is by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson, but the song appears to be older. Perhaps more characteristic than any particular plot is the second half of the first verse, which often becomes a chorus:
With my (swag/bundle) on my shoulder,
My (stick/billy) in my hand,
I'll travel round (the country/Australia/etc.)
(Like/I'm) a (true-born Irishman/true-born native man/roving journeyman). - RBW
The Elbourne fragment is from a weaver version of "The Roving Jouneyman."
The GreigDuncan7 fragment is from a navvy version of "The Roving Journeyman." It is tempting to make this a separate version on the assumption that navvies modified the more common song for their own use, but the songs are too close to support the split. The fragment begins "I hadna been in Huntly toun a week but barely three"; the Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR) came to Huntly around 1853 (source: "Great North of Scotland Railway" at the Steam Index [British Steam Locomotive History] site). This passage illustrates the other -- besides the "navvy" reference -- difference between the navvy version and the more common "Roving Irishman" texts: in these the singer roves in Scotland or England (see "The Navvie Man," Sam Richards and Tish Stubbs, The English Folksinger (Glasgow, 1979), p. 111, and the EFDSS LP sited below) or Scotland (GreigDuncan7), rather than Pennsylvania or Australia.
Kennedy, on page 801 note to Kennedy 353, "The Roving Journeyman," has the last verse of "The Roving Navigator" ending "Now she's happy and contented with her roving navvy man."
"I Am a Roving Navvy Man" on EFDSS LP 1008 All Jolly Fellows is also this song. Fred McCormick provided the words from the LP. Steve Gardham had the Richards and Stubbs reference. Both answered my query to the Ballad-L list when I was speculating whether the GreigDuncan7 fragment belongs here with "The Roving Journeyman."
You can get some information on "The Navvy Age" in the notes to "The Roving Newfoundlanders (II)" [as the navvies moved to Canada], and, about their reputations as rakes in "The Courting Coat," "The Navvy Boy" and "Navvy on the Line."
Broadside LOCSinging sb40459b: J. Andrews dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: MA062

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