Waxies' Dargle, The

DESCRIPTION: "Says my aul' one to your aul' one, Will ye come to the Waxies' Dargle?" The hearer hasn't a farthing to take a trip. Neither can they go to the Galway races. They agree, "When food is scarce, And you see the hearse, You'll know you died of hunger."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1973 (Behan-IrelandSings)
KEYWORDS: food travel hardtimes poverty
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Behan-IrelandSings, #95, "The Waxie's Dargle" (1 text, 1 tune, modified)
Brady-AllInAllIn, p. 167, "The Waxies' Dargle" (1 short text, with just the first half of the first verse)
DT, WAXDARGL*
Roud #38105
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Girl I Left Behind Me" (II - lyric) (tune)
cf. "Brighton Camp" (tune)
NOTES [188 words]: Most accounts I've seen say that waxies were candlemakers, which make sense, although Robert Gogan, 130 Great Irish Ballads [third edition, Music Ireland, 2004], p.105, says they were people who waxed bootlaces and Brady-AllInAllIn says they were cobblers who used waxed ends for stitching. In any case, they were people who used wax in their work. Soodlum's Irish Ballad Book declares that the Waxies' Dargle was an annual meeting of candlemakers held in Bray in County Wicklow. Gogan, however, declares that the poor waxies could not afford a visit to such a posh place, and so went instead to a beach in Dublin. Brady-AllInAllIn says they met at Irishtown Green near Ringsend until around 1890.
If that all sounds to you like no one quite knows the origin of the song... that's certainly what it sounds like to me, too.
The versions I've seen don't make it clear why times are so hard in this song; it doesn't sound like a famine song. I suspect its survival has much to do with being fitted to the much-loved tune "Brighton Camp"/"The Girl I Left Behind Me."
"Aul' one/ould one/old one" generally means mother or wife. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: DTWaxDar

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