A SOLDIER AND A SAILOR
Track 34
Notes on the Track (34)
Recorded: 1958Notes on the Song
A Soldier and a Sailor is another song that the Gallaghers seem to have picked up in one hearing at a house party. Brigid Tunney recorded it for the BBC in 1952. This recording of Paddy and Joe singing it dates from 1957 when the two brothers were invited to London to perform at a concert celebrating the diamond jubilee of the EFDSS in the Royal Festival Hall. That trip is lovingly recreated in Paddy’s Where Songs Do Thunder, including the recording session in the Cecil Sharp House during which they met Paul Robeson. On the occasion of both recordings the Tunneys, possibly in deference to Peter Kennedy, refrained from recording the last verse which goes:
‘And the last one we’ll pray for, we’ll pray for the Queen
That she may have princes, the odd princess between,
And if she has one prince that she may have ten,
And may she have a bloody regiment!’
Says the sailor, ‘Amen’.
*The notes for songs 28-42, if not covered by earlier entries, have been compiled by John Tunney.
The Singers
Cathal Tunney
Rec. 1991
The Song Texts
The Tunney Song Tradition Trust’s Archive of Song Texts preserves the words of traditional songs, offering a valuable resource for singers and anyone interested in the living song tradition.
Where the Linnets Sing 2026, developed by the Tunney Song Tradition Trust with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, celebrates 75 Bliain ag Fás by bringing the original collection to a new online audience, enriched with fifteen additional tracks, eleven more voices and two further generations of the tradition.
