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The Little Beggarman / Johnny Dhu / The Oul’ Rigadoo

[ Roud 900 ; Henry H751 ; Ballad Index K345 , LeBe077 ; trad.]

Gale Huntington: Sam Henry’s Songs of the People

Mike Flanagan sang The Beggarman Song (The Auld Rigadoo) in the 1920s or 1930s on the 78rpm shellac record Regal Zonophone G 9382. This recording was included 1n 1979 on Topic’s Flanagan Brothers album of classic recordings of Irish traditional music in America, An Irish Delight.

Sarah Makem and Tommy Makem sang The Little Beggarman in 1956 on the Tradition anthology of folk songs and dances from the Irish countryside, The Lark in the Morning.

Michael Cooney sang and played The Little Beggar Man in 1973 on the National Geographic Society’s album Songs & Sounds of the Sea. The liner notes commented:

In the grim days before scurvy was known to stem from a lack of Vitamin C in the typical seagoing diet, British ships traditionally carried a fiddler whose duties included playing lively hornpipes to which the seaman had to dance“the idea being that the stirring of their blood would prevent onset of the dread malady. For this reason perhaps, hornpipes have a peculiar ability to conjure up images of the days of sturdy wooden ships and booming canvas sails. Michael Cooney’s light triplets on the five-string banjo decorate the melody of the Little Beggar Man, a hornpipe that gained favour in Ireland as the Red-haired Boy and in America as, oddly enough, There Was an Old Soldier and He Had a Wooden Leg.

John Roberts sang The Little Beggarman on his 1989 album Songs From the Pubs of Ireland

Maggie Boyle, Duck Baker and Ben Paley played the tune of Little Beggar Man in 2005 on their album of traditional Irish and American music, The Expatriate Game. They noted:

Little Beggar Man is widely known in Scotland and Ireland under this title. In America it’s usually called The Red-Haired Boy.

Lyrics

John Roberts sings The Little Beggarman

I am a little beggarman, and begging I have been
For three score years in this little isle of green;
I’m known along the Liffey from the bays unto Segue,
And everybody calls me old Johnny Dhu.
Of all the trades that’s going, sure, the begging is the best,
For when a man is tired he can sit down and rest,
Beg for his dinner, nothing else to do
But to slip around the corner with his old rigadoo.

I slept in a barn one night in Carrabawn,
A short and wet night, but I slept till the dawn,
Holes in the roof, the rain comin’ through,
And the rats and the cats all playin’ peek-a-boo;
Who did I waken but the woman of the house,
With her white-spotted apron and her calico blouse,
She began to get excited, all I said was, “Boo,
Sure don’t be afraid, it’s only Johnny Dhu.”

I met a little flaxen-haired girl one day,
“Good morning, little flaxen-haired girl,” I did say;
“Good morning, little beggarman, and how do you do,
With your rags and your tags and your old’ rigadoo?”
“I’ll buy a pair o’ leggings and a collar and a tie,
And a nice young lady I’ll court by and by,
I’ll buy a pair o’ goggles, colour them with blue,
And an old-fashioned lady I will make her two.”

So all along the road with my bag on the back,
All across the fields with my big heavy sack,
With holes in my shoes, my toes are peeping through,
Singing, “Skinny malink a doodle, with my old rigadoo.”
But now I must be going for it’s getting late at night,
The fire’s all raked and out goes the light,
And now you’ve heard the story of my old’ rigadoo,
Goodnight and God be with you, from old Johnny Dhu.