Just Irish Music

The Ballad of McCafferty – A Tragic Tale of an Irish Soldier Hanged at 19 In 1861, a young Irish lad named Patrick McCaffery stood before a judge in Liverpool. He was just nineteen years old. The sentence was swift and final: “Go prepare your soul for eternity.” Within weeks, he was hanged at Kirkdale Gaol in front of a massive crowd. Today, his name lives on through a haunting Irish ballad — “McCafferty.” But behind the verses lies a chilling true story of poverty, power, and a system that broke the very people it claimed to serve. From Athy to the Barracks Patrick McCaffery was born in Athy, County Kildare , in 1842 — a time of famine and hardship across Ireland. Orphaned young and raised in poverty, like many others, he turned to the British Army as a way out. He joined the 60th Rifles (King’s Royal Rifle Corps) at around 17 or 18 years of age, hoping for a steady wage and a future. Instead, he found humiliation, cruelty, and a rigid system where Irish lads were often tre...

Lanigan’s Ball is one of the liveliest and most comical songs in the Irish folk tradition — a whirlwind of music, dancing, and pure mischief. Written in the 1850s by the Irish songwriter Dion Boucicault , it tells the story of young Lanigan , a proud Dubliner who throws a grand party after returning home from a trip abroad. Determined to impress the neighbours, he “borrowed the company’s hall” and set out to host the greatest dance the town had ever seen. The song is set to a fast, playful rhythm that captures the chaos of the evening — fiddles flying, feet stamping, tempers flaring, and laughter echoing through the hall. As the verses unfold, the guests dance wildly, fights break out, bottles clink, and poor Lanigan’s grand night spirals into hilarious bedlam. By dawn, the once-fancy gathering has turned into a tangle of bruised egos and broken furniture, yet no one regrets a moment of it. Like many Irish comic ballads, Lanigan’s Ball carries more than humour — it celebrates t...