A great American minstrel and vaudeville staging, 1873.
words by Edward Harrigan
music by David Braham
From the Dover book Popular Irish Songs: This infectiously buoyant march is a rare testament to an odd feature of big-city life in the later nineteenth century – what Sigmund Spaeth calls “the pseudo-military organizations that lingered after the Civil War, giving militant die-hards and would-be soldiers a chance to wear some sort of uniform long after such exhibitionism had lost all patriotic significance.” Such groups often attached themselves to politicians, providing a campaign with music and panoply. The Mulligan cadre paraded through the Lower East Side of Manhattan, historically a home to recent immigrants.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
1. We crave your condescension
We’ll tell you what we know
Of marching in the Mulligan Guard
From Sligo ward below
Our Captain’s name was Hussey
A Tipperrary man
He carried his sword like a Russian duke
Whenever he took command
Chorus:
We shouldered guns
And marched and marched away
From Baxter street
We marched to Avenue A
With drums and fife
How sweetly they did play
As we marched, marched
Marched in the Mulligan Guard
2. When the band played Garry Owen
Or the Connamara Pet
With a rub a dub, dub, we’d march
In the mud, to the military step
With the green above the red, boys
To show where we come from
Our guns we’d lift with the right shoulder shift
As we’d march to the bate of the drum
3. Whin we got home at night, boys
The divil a bite we’d ate
We’d all set up and drink a sup
Of whiskey strong and nate
Thin we’d all march home together
As slippery as lard
The solid min would all fall in
And march with the Mulligan Guard
Sung here by Fred Feild: