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"McCafferty" is an
Irish ballad The following are often-sung Irish folk ballads and folk songs. The songs are arranged by theme under the categories "Politics and soldiering" and "Non-political" and are not necessarily contemporary to the events to which they relate. Songs ma ...
which originated as a street-ballad about
British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
Private Patrick McCaffrey, executed in 1862 for the "
fragging Fragging is the deliberate or attempted killing by a soldier of a fellow soldier, usually a superior. U.S. military personnel coined the word during the Vietnam War, when such killings were most often attempted with a fragmentation grenade, some ...
" of two officers. It is particularly popular in Ireland, where Pvt. McCaffrey came from, and was recorded by
The Dubliners The Dubliners were an Folk music of Ireland, Irish folk band founded in Dublin in 1962 as The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group, named after its founding member; they subsequently renamed themselves The Dubliners. The line-up saw many changes in personn ...
. In the British Army it was allegedly a
court martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...
offence to sing the song, but that is a legend. The song is set to the traditional Irish tune "
Cailín Óg a Stór Cailín Óg a Stór (Irish for "O Darling Young Girl") is a traditional Irish melody, originally accepted for publication in March 1582. It may be the source of Pistol's cryptic line in Henry V, '' Caleno custure me''. It is part of a broadside co ...
", which is the same melody used for "
The Croppy Boy "The Croppy Boy" is an Irish ballad set in 1798 rising relating to the despair of a doomed young "croppy" or rebel. Broadside versions Versions of the ballad first appeared shortly after the rising sung by street pedlars and there are several bro ...
".


Story

Patrick McCaffery was born in
County Kildare County Kildare ( ga, Contae Chill Dara) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Leinster and is part of the Eastern and Midland Region. It is named after the town of Kildare. Kildare County Council is the local authority for the county, ...
,
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
in October 1842. Deserted by his father while young, Mrs. McCaffery sent him to England to stay with a friend, Mrs. Murphy of
Mossley Mossley (/ˈmɒzli/) is a town and civil parish in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England, in the upper Tame Valley and the foothills of the Pennines, southeast of Oldham and east of Manchester. The historic counties of Lancashire, Cheshire ...
near Manchester, where, at the age of 12, he started work in a local mill, later moving to Stalybridge. On 10 October 1860, aged 18, he took the Queen's shilling and enlisted in the
32nd (Cornwall) Regiment of Foot The 32nd Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1702. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 46th (South Devonshire) Regiment of Foot to form the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in 1881. History ...
(Light Infantry). After enlistment he was sent to
Fulwood Barracks Fulwood Barracks is a military installation at Fulwood in Preston, Lancashire, England. History The barracks were built between 1842 and 1848 as a base, initially at least, for the 2nd Battalion 60th Rifles following the chartist riots. In 186 ...
to train with 11 Depot Battalion and then posted to 12 Coy, the 32nd Regiment. Throughout the following months he fell foul of the Adjutant, Captain Hanham, on several occasions. Maybe deservedly so or due to Hanham being a zealous martinet. On 13 September 1861 while on sentry duty, McCaffery, ordered by HanHam, to take names of children playing near officers quarters, only managed to take one as the rest of the children ran away. The Captain brought charges and next morning he was sentenced to fourteen days confinement to barracks. Later that day Capt. Hanham and the commanding officer of the Fulwood depot, Col. Hugh Crofton, were walking across the barracks square when McCaffery loaded his musket and fired at them, at a distance of , causing both to stagger and fall. A bullet passed right through Col. Crofton’s lungs then through the chest of his companion and one of his lungs and lodged in his back. After firing the shot McCaffery quietly handed his weapon to a comrade and was led, unresisting, away. Col. Crofton died next day and Capt. Hanham a few days later. McCaffrey's trial was set for the Liverpool Assizes, where he appeared in December. The result was a foregone conclusion. The sentence was carried out on Saturday, 11 January 1862, in front of Kirkdale Gaol, at Liverpool. The sympathies of the crowd were with McCaffery, now 19 years old. The
street ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
that was written sometime afterwards found the popular ear amongst the large Catholic Irish population of the North West of England.


Recordings

The folklore archive
Tobar an Dualchais – Kist o Riches Tobar an Dualchais – Kist o Riches () is a project which aims to preserve and digitize material gathered in Scottish Gaelic, Scots and English by the School of Scottish Studies (of the University of Edinburgh), BBC Scotland and the ''Canna Collec ...
contains a 1953 five-minute live concert recording of
Ewan MacColl James Henry Miller (25 January 1915 – 22 October 1989), better known by his stage name Ewan MacColl, was a folk singer-songwriter, folk song collector, labour activist and actor. Born in England to Scottish parents, he is known as one of the ...
, which includes a brief account of where MacColl heard the song. According to MacColl, "I first heard this song sung by a group of Liverpool dockers who had been drafted into the army, and I noticed that a couple of them were standing guard very obviously outside a tent, and I bribed my way in with a half bottle of whisky and sure enough they were singing this song McCaffery." In notes for a later version included in
Peggy Seeger Margaret "Peggy" Seeger (born June 17, 1935) is an American Folk music, folk singer. She has lived in Britain for more than 60 years, and was married to the singer and songwriter Ewan MacColl until his death in 1989. First American period Seeg ...
and Ewan MacColl's collection The Singing Island, the song is described as having been collected by MacColl from Patrick Dodds of Birkenhead in 1941. *A partial discography: :
The Dubliners The Dubliners were an Folk music of Ireland, Irish folk band founded in Dublin in 1962 as The Ronnie Drew Ballad Group, named after its founding member; they subsequently renamed themselves The Dubliners. The line-up saw many changes in personn ...
:Martin Winsor - "Troubadour" :Roy Palmer :Dave Burland


See also

*
Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" (Roud 3137), also known as "Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye" or "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya", is a popular traditional song, sung to the same tune as "When Johnny Comes Marching Home". First published in London in 1867 and writte ...


Bibliography

*
A.L. Lloyd Albert Lancaster Lloyd (29 February 1908 – 29 September 1982),Eder, Bruce. (29 September 1982A. L. Lloyd - Music Biography, Credits and Discography AllMusic. Retrieved on 2013-02-24. usually known as A. L. Lloyd or Bert Lloyd, was an English fo ...
: Folksongs Of England (1967).


References

{{reflist Irish folk songs The Dubliners songs