Print This Page#00097 Print This Page
There was a wild colonial boy, Jack Duggan was his name,
He was born and raised in Ireland in a town called Castlemaine;
He was his mother's only son, his father's pride and joy,
And dearly did his parents love the wild colonial boy.
Well, at the early age of sixteen years he left his native home,
And to Australia's sunny shores he was inclined to roam;
He robbed the rich and helped the poor, he stabbed James MacEvoy,
A terror to Australia was the wild colonial boy.
One day upon the wild prairie, as Jack he rode along,
A-listening to a mocking bird whistle its cheerful song,
Out jumped three troopers fierce and grim: Kelly, Davis and Fitzroy,
They all set out to capture him, the wild colonial boy.
"Surrender now, Jack Duggan, come, we number three to one,
Surrender in the Queen's high name for you are a plundering son."
He pulled two pistols from his side and he glared upon Fitzroy,
"I'll fight, but not surrender," cried the wild colonial boy.
He fired a shot at Kelly, which brought him to the ground,
He fired point blank at Davis, too, who fell dead at the sound;
But a bullet pierced his brave young heart from the pistol of Fitzroy,
And that was how they captured him, the wild colonial boy.
Yes, and that was how they captured him, the wild colonial boy.
The Donahue story began in 1823, in Dublin, when Bold Jack was sentenced to be transported to Australia for life for 'intent to commit a felony'. Brought to Australia in chains, Jack soon bunked out of his convict stockade and turned bushranger. His mates acted as his spies and in return Donahue kept them supplied with rum and tobacco and wrought instant retribution on any planter who oppressed his convicts. The whole colony was kept in an uproar by Donahue's daring robberies until 1830, when the bush police at last surrounded him and shot him down. His ballad spread like wildfire through the colony - such a focus for popular discontent that soon it became a civil offence to sing it in any public place. Several variant songs thereupon appeared, with precisely the same content but different names for their heroes. One of these ballads, The Wild Colonial Boy, can be heard today in Irish pubs 'round the world. The original ballad, meanwhile, took refuge in America, where fishermen, lumberjacks, and cowboys kept the bold bushranger's memory green.The YouTube video below features a recording of a variant by the Newfoundland Showband (Memories Of Home, trk#9, 1973, Marathon Music, Toronto, Ontario).
