Private Michael Cassidy

DESCRIPTION: "Oh! Private Michael Cassidy, bedad! and that's the bhoy, Who's known to all the Irish Guards as Kitchener's pride and joy." "Assidy, assidy, Sergeant/Private Michael Cassidy, He's the boy, of wonderful sagacity." Celebrate his deeds
AUTHOR: R. P. Weston (1878-1936) and Jack Norworth (source: sheet music published by Francis, Day and Hunter)
EARLIEST DATE: 1915 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: soldier Ireland
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 156, "Assidy, assidy, Sergeant Michael Cassidy" (1 fragment)
FolkSongAndMusicHall, "Cassidy -- Private Michael Cassidy"
Roud #25547
NOTES [132 words]: Edith Fowke's notes say that this is a version of "Private Michael Cassidy, V.C.," which was recorded by its co-author Jack Norworth on Columbia 2609 and Regal G712. The sheet music was published; I found catalog records in British and Australian libraries, but no one seems to have a scan, so I don't know what the song is about.
I do not find a Michael Cassidy among the winners of the Victoria Cross. FolkSongAndMusicHall makes the reasonable suggestions that "Private Michael Cassidy may well have been based on the fictional Sergeant Michael Cassidy who featured in a series of short stories published in the Daily Mail in the early months of the war. They were later were collected in a best selling book."
For the long list of songs by R. P. Weston, see the notes to "Goodbye-ee." - RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: KSUC156A

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