The Wild Colonial Boy (2)

Anonymous



There was a wild Colonial Boy,
Jack Doolan was his name,
Of poor but honest parents,
He was born in Castlemaine.
He was his father's only hope
His mother's pride and joy,
And dearly did his parents love
The Wild Colonial Boy.

CHORUS:
So come along, my hearties
And we'll range the mountain side
Together we will plunder
And together we will ride
We scour all the valleys
And we'll gallop o'er the plains
And scorn to live in slavery bound down with iron chains.


At scarcely sixteen years of age
He left his native home,
And to Australia's sunny shores
A bushranger did roam.
They put him in the iron gang
In the government employ,
But never an iron on earth could hold
The Wild Colonial Boy


In sixty-one this daring youth
Commenced his wild career,
With a heart that knew no danger
And no foreman did he fear.
He stuck up the Beechworth mail coach
And robbed Judge MacEvoy
Who, trembling cold, gave up his gold
To the Wild Colonial Boy


He bade the Judge good morning
And he told him to beware,
That he'd never rob a needy man
Or one who acted square,
But a Judge who'd robed a mother
Of her one and only joy
Sure, he must be a worse outlaw than
The Wild Colonial Boy


One day as Jack was riding
The mountainside along,
A- listening to the little birds
Their happy laughing song.
Three mounted troopers came along,
Kelly, Davis and Fitzroy
With a warrant for the capture of
The Wild Colonial Boy.


'Surrender now! Jack Doolan,
For you see it's three to one;
Surrender in the Queen's own name,
You are a highwayman.'
Jack drew his pistol from his belt
And waved it like a toy,
'I'll fight, but not surrender,' cried
The Wild Colonial Boy.


He fired at trooper Kelly
And brought him to the ground,
And in return from Davis,
Received a mortal wound,
All shattered through the jaws he lay
Still firing at Fitzroy,
And that's the way they captured him,
The Wild Colonial Boy.



A variation closer to the version I learnt at school, to a much more common tune than that posted a couple of days ago.

The illustration is a picture from the State Library of Tasmania collection: Convicts Plundering a Homestead.

Bold Jack Donohue

Unknown



In Dublin town I was brought up that city of great fame
My parents reared me tenderly there's many did the same
Being a wild colonial boy I was forced to cross the main
And for seven long years in New South Wales to wear a convict's chain

Oh I'd been no longer than six months upon Australian shores
When I turned out as a Tory boy as I'd often done before
There was Macnamara from yonder woods and Captain Mackie too
They were the chief associates of bold Jack Donahoe

As O'Donahoe was taken for a notorious crime
And sentenced to be hanged all on the gallows high
But when he came to Sydney gaol he left them in a stew
For when they came to call the roll they missed Jack Donahoe

As O'Donahoe made his escape to the woods he did repair
Where the tyrants dared not show their face by night and day
And every week in the newspapers there was published something new
Concerning that bold hero boy called brave Jack Donahoe

As O'Donahoe was walking one summer's afternoon
Little was his notion that his death should be so soon
When a sergeant of the horse police discharged his carabine
And loudly called to O'Donahoe to fight or else resign

“It never shall be said of me that Donahue the brave
Surrendered to a policeman or became an Englishman's slave"
For I'll range these woods and valleys like a wolf or kangaroo
Before I'll work for Government said bold Jack Donahoe

Nine rounds the horse policeman fired till at length a fatal ball
He lodged it in O'Donahoe's breast and it caused him to fall
As he closed his mournful eyes to this world he bid adieu
Good people all both great and small pray for Jack Donahoe



Irishman, convict, bushranger and multiple-escapee, Jack Donohue was one of Australia's most famous bushrangers.

From AL Lloyds Old Bush Songs:

Donahue came to Australia from Dublin on the transport “Ann & Amelia” in 1825. An old hand says: “He was only twenty when he arrived here, but he was a second Napoleon. He was short, but a model of muscle and bone... He often said he was never designed for a prisoner and whilst he lived he would be free...” Twice he escaped from the iron gang, and the second time he and his band terrorised the Nepan countryside for a brief two years before he was trapped and shot by the police. The ballad must have been made by an admiring Irish convict shortly after Donahue's death. It has a contempt for the law, a pride in the outlaw's independence, an appreciation of Donahue as the kind of man “who would fight till hell freezes over, and then write on the ice: Come on, you bastards!” It is this spirit which has kept the ballad of Jack Donahue going all these years since the troopers shot him in the Bringilly scrub on September 1st, 1830


The tune used here is taken from the Australian Folk Songs site:

This version collected by Alan Scott from Mr H. Beatty of Hawthorne Qld. In his booklet The Donahoe Ballads gives some 16 tunes that have been collected.

The illustration to this post is the famous pencil drawing of the dead Jack Donohue by Sir TL Mitchell. The original is held in the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.