Paddy Doyle (I)

DESCRIPTION: Shanty. Characteristic line: "We'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots." The boots may be referred to as stolen, or Paddy's boarding house may be described
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1909 (Heart-Songs)
KEYWORDS: shanty clothes poverty
FOUND IN: US(MA,NE) Ireland Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (16 citations):
Doerflinger-SongsOfTheSailorAndLumberman, p. 10, "Paddy Doyle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Colcord-SongsOfAmericanSailormen, p. 43, "Paddy Doyle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Harlow-ChantyingAboardAmericanShips, p. 32, "Paddy Doyle and His Boots" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hugill-ShantiesFromTheSevenSeas, pp. 330-334, "Paddy Doyle's Boots" (3 texts, 3 tunes) [AbEd, pp. 247-249]
Sharp-EnglishFolkChanteys, XXXVIII, p. 43, "Paddy Doyle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kinsey-SongsOfTheSea, p. 115, "Paddy Doyle's Boots" (1 text, 1 tune)
Henry/Huntingdon/Herrmann-SamHenrysSongsOfThePeople H53c, p. 96, "Paddy Doyle' (1 text, 1 tune, a tiny fragment)
Smith/Hatt/Fowke-SeaSongsBalladFromNineteenthCenturyNovaScotia, p. 28, "We'll Pay Paddy Doyle For His Boots" (1 fragment)
Bone-CapstanBars, p. 47, "Paddy Doyle" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Terry-TheShantyBook-Part1, #30, "Paddy Doyle's boots" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shay-AmericanSeaSongsAndChanteys, p. 31, "Paddy Doyle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine, p. 237, "Paddy Doyle" (1 short text)
Heart-Songs, p. 433, "We'll Pay Paddy Doyle" (1 text, 1 tune, a single line)
DT, PADDOYLE
ADDITIONAL: Captain John Robinson, "Songs of the Chantey Man," a series published July-August 1917 in the periodical _The Bellman_ (Minneapolis, MN, 1906-1919). A fragment of "Paddy Doyle" is in Part 4, 8/4/1917.
Frederick Pease Harlow, _The Making of a Sailor, or Sea Life Aboard a Yankee Square-Rigger_, 1928; republished by Dover, 1988, p. 199, "Paddy Doyle and His Boots" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4695
RECORDINGS:
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, "Paddy Doyle's Boots" (on IRClancyMakem02)
Richard Maitland, "Paddy Doyle" (AFS, 1939; on LC26)
NOTES [122 words]: According to Doerflinger-SongsOfTheSailorAndLumberman, Doyle was a boarding master. (A boarding master took in sailors and found them jobs at sea in return for a cut of their pay. In return, he was to provide them with necessary equipment such as boots; for background on the, see the notes to "Dixie Brown" [Laws D7].) Boarding masters expected to take a large profit, but apparently Doyle was more rapacious than most.
Terry says that the only line in some versions was the identifying lyric "We'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots," but happily for the sailors' sanity, some people came up with alternatives.
The Eckstorm/Smyth-MinstrelsyOfMaine version is unusual in that they will "kill" rather than "pay" Paddy for his boots. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.2
File: Doe010

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