Words & Music by Dominic Behan

Dominic Behan's tribute to the boys who work on the building sites

As down the glen came McAlpine's men with their shovels slung behind them
It was in the pub that they drank their sub or down in the spike you'll find them
We sweated blood and we washed down mud with quarts and pints of beer
But now we're on the road again with McAlpine's Fusiliers

I stripped to the skin with Darky Finn down upon the Isle of Grain
With Horseface Toole I learned the rule, no money if you stop for rain
For McAlpine's god is a well filled hod with your shoulders cut to bits and seared
And woe to he who looks for tea with McAlpine's Fusilers

I remember the day that the Bear O'Shea fell into a concrete stair
What Horseface said, when he saw him dead, well it wasn't what the rich call prayers
'I'm a navvy short' was his one retort that reached into my ears
When the going is rough, well you must be tough with McAlpine's Fusiliers

I've worked till the sweat near had me beat with Russian, Czech and Pole
At shuttering jams up in the hydro dams or underneath the Thames in a hole
I grafted hard and I got me cards and many a ganger's fist across me ears
If you pride your life, don't join, by Christ, with McAlpine's Fusiliers.