Paddy Clancy, was an Irish folk singer best known as a member of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. In addition to singing and storytelling, Clancy played the harmonica with the group, which is widely credited with popularising Irish traditional music in the United States and revitalising it in Ireland. He also started and ran the folk music label Tradition Records, which recorded many of the key figures of the American folk music revival.
Clancy was one of eleven children and the eldest of four boys born to Johanna McGrath and Bob Clancy in Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary.
Clancy died at home of lung cancer at the age of 76. He was buried, wearing his trademark white cap, in the tiny village of Faugheen, near Carrick-on-Suir.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dilis.
‘Wild Colonial Boy’
There was a wild colonial boy, Jack Duggan was his name
He was born and raised in Ireland in a place called Castlemaine
He was his father’s only son, his mother’s pride and joy
And dearly did his parents love the wild colonial boy
At the early age of sixteen years, he left his native home
And to Australia’s sunny shore he was inclined to roam
He robbed the rich, he helped the poor, he shot James McAvoy
A terror to Australia was the wild colonial boy
One morning on the prairie as Jack he rode along
A listening to the mockingbird a singing a cheerful song
Out stepped a band of troopers, Kelly, Davis and Fitzroy
They all set out to capture him, the wild colonial boy
“Surrender now Jack Duggan for you see we’re three to one
Surrender in the Queen’s high name for you’re a plundering son”
Jack pulled two pistols from his belt and he proudly waved them high
“I’ll fight, but not surrender, ” said the wild colonial boy
He fired a shot at Kelly, which brought him to the ground
And turning ’round to Davis, he received a fatal wound
A bullet pierced his proud young heart from the pistol of Fitzroy
And that was how they captured him, the wild colonial boy
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