Johnny Troy [Laws L21]

DESCRIPTION: Irishman Troy, a convicted robber, is sent to Australia. He and his fellow convicts escape as they are being taken ashore. Troy turns robber, but steals only from the rich, giving to the poor and transportees. At last he is taken and hanged
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan )
KEYWORDS: robbery transportation prison execution
FOUND IN: US(MW,SE)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Laws L21, "Johnny Troy"
Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan 134, "Johnny Troy" (1 text)
Beck-SongsOfTheMichiganLumberjacks 88, "Johnnie Troy" (1 text)
Beck-TheyKnewPaulBunyan, pp. 246-249, "Johnnie Troy" (1 text)
Beck-LoreOfTheLumberCamps 96, "Johnnie Troy" (1 text)
Ward-PenguinBookOfAustralianBallads, pp. 47-49, "Johnny Troy" (1 text)
DT 574, JOHNTROY
ADDITIONAL: Hugh Anderson, _Farewell to Judges and Juries: The Broadside Ballad and Convict Transportation to Australia, 1788-1868_, Red Rooster Press, 2000, p. 215, "Johnny Troy" (1 text, with a tune on p. 572)
Roud #3703
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Johnny Try
NOTES [119 words]: According to Graham Seal, Encyclopedia of Folk Heroes, ABC Clio, 2001, p. 251, the story of Johnny Troy genuinely originated in Australia: "Johnny Troy is especially interesting as an example of an Australian hero who has a busy life in American tradition, while having apparently dropped from Australian folklore together.... Troy is also mentioned in company with other convict and bushranger heroes in Francis (Frank the Poet) MacNamara's 'The Convict's Tour of (or "to") Hell,' composed in 1839, as well as in the best-known of the ballads about convict bushranger Jack Donahoe." But, as Seal said, there is no record of Troy's ballad in Australian tradition; all field collections seem to be from America. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: LL21

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography