• Source: The Wild Colonial Boy

"The Wild Colonial Boy" (Roud 677, Laws L20) is a traditional anonymously penned Irish-Australian folk ballad that tells the story of a bushranger in early colonial Australia who dies during a gunfight with local police. Versions of the ballad give different names for the bushranger involved: some based on real individuals and some apparently fictional. A common theme is romanticisation of the bushranger's battle against colonial authority. According to a report in The Argus in November 1880, Ann Jones, the innkeeper of the Glenrowan Hotel, asked her son to sing the ballad when the Kelly gang were at her hotel in June that year.




Identity of the bushranger


Versions of the ballad depict bushrangers with the first name of "Jack" and surnames such as "Dolan," "Doolan," "Duggan" and "Donahue." It is unclear if the ballad originally referred to an actual person.
One possible origin is Jack Donahue (also spelled Donohoe), an 1820s Irish convict who was sent to Australia, became a bushranger and was killed by police. Another possibility is that the song refers to an 1860s juvenile Australian convict named John Doolan, who was born in Castlemaine, Victoria, and also turned to bushranging. However, the real Doolan was not shot by police, instead being captured and sentenced to an additional convict term. It is also possible that the histories of Donohue and Doolan became blended over time to produce the modern ballad's lyrics. There is also a possibility that the name of the real person was Jack Donahue, whose name was changed over time to mask the song's origins.




Lyrics and melody






In popular culture


The Pogues and The Dubliners released "Jack's Heroes", a 1990 single celebrating the Republic of Ireland national football team, which uses the tune of "The Wild Colonial Boy".
"The Wild Colonial Boy" is sung in The Quiet Man (1952 film directed by John Ford), in the scene in which American Sean Thornton (played by John Wayne) first appears in the bar in the Irish village of Innisfree.




References






Further reading


"The Wild Colonial Boy", Paul Slade, May 2019




External links


Works related to The Wild Colonial Boy at Wikisource

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