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Farewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lies,
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks,
And to hell with your overtime;
For the good ship Ragamuffin, she's lying at the quay,
For to take oul' Pat with a shovel on his back,
To the shores of Botany Bay.
I'm on my way down to the quay, where the ship at anchor lays,
To command a gang of navvys, that they told me to engage;
I thought I'd drop in for a drink before I went away,
For to take a trip on an emigrant ship to the shores of Botany Bay.
Farewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lies,
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks,
And to hell with your overtime;
For the good ship Ragamuffin, she's lying at the quay,
For to take oul' Pat with a shovel on his back,
To the shores of Botany Bay.
The boss came up this morning, he says "Well, Pat, you know,
If you don't get your navvys out, I'm afraid you'll have to go;"
So I asked him for my wages and demanded all my pay,
For I told him straight, I'm going to emigrate to the shores of Botany Bay.
Farewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lies,
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks,
And to hell with your overtime;
For the good ship Ragamuffin, she's lying at the quay,
For to take oul' Pat with a shovel on his back,
To the shores of Botany Bay.
And when I reach Australia, I'll go and look for gold,
There's plenty there for the digging of, or so I have been told;
Or else I'll go back to my trade, and a hundred bricks I'll lay,
Because I live for an eight hour shift on the shores of Botany Bay.
Farewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lies,
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks,
And to hell with your overtime;
For the good ship Ragamuffin, she's lying at the quay,
For to take oul' Pat with a shovel on his back,
To the shores of Botany Bay.
This variant from the Makem And Clancy Concert 1992, ©2002 Makem.com
A variant was also arranged and recorded by the Masterless Men on a compilation album by various artists (Welcome To The Experience, trk#1, Recorded live by Rick Barela and Mark Neary during St. Patrick's Weekend March 15-19, 2001 at O'Reilly's Pub, St. John's, NL).
The YouTube video above features a live performance of a variant by the Crimson Pirates at the New York Renaissance Faire on 12 August 2007.
