Song picture
Whiskey Island
Like
Playlist
Comment Share
Free download
Whiskey Island is based on the true story of an Irish immigrant in the 1840's who fled the potato famine for Ohio where he dug the canals. You can find out more about Toraigh and buy our first CD at toraigh.com
irish celtic music flute
Artist picture
Toraigh is a hot traditional irish band from northwest Ohio original. Members are Bob Midden on flutes, whistles, bass and vocals, Martin Koop on guitars and vo
The aim of Toraigh is to become ever more original while holding tightly to the traditional, through new and different arrangements, original songs that connect to their roots, creative use of bodhran, and other rhythms, as well as the exploitation of modern electronic techniques of music generation.
Song Info
Genre
World • Traditional Celtic
Charts
#11,267 today Peak #47
#448 in subgenre Peak #3
Author
Martin Koop
Rights
Martin Koop
Uploaded
July 09, 2003
Track Files
MP3
MP3 3.8 MB • 128 kbps • 0:00
Story behind the song
Whiskey Island is actually a peninsula with access from the Edgewater Park area of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1827 that federal funding and engineering expertise allowed local citizens to dig a channel, creating the river's mouth as we now know it. The Irish, naturally, did the digging. Since that peninsula was the only habitable land anywhere about, the Irish took possession of it and began erecting tarpaper shanties on it. Amusingly enough, that stretch of slightly elevated land was once the "farm" of Lorenzo Carter, the city's first resident, who had built a still on its easternmost end. The land the Irish settled on had been called Whiskey Island before they arrived, but if it hadn't been, it would have had to have been renamed. The Irish who squatted there gave a new meaning to the island's name -- they made it a real island of whiskey. In its heyday it boasted of having 13 saloons, a considerable achievement since it was only a mile long and a third of a mile across at its vtidest point. It was from the first and for many years remained the wildest, bawdiest section of Cleveland. For the Irish canal digger it was home away from home, and after months of hard labor, death and disease, working the canals as far south as Portsmouth, the diggers fondly remembered the craic shared at Whiskey Island.
Lyrics
Whiskey Island © 2003 Martin Koop (ASCAP) martinkoop@martinkoop.com I left the blight in Carraroe where I had been unfed to dig deep in the soggy soil and dig is what I did Whiskey Island I will be your plow coffee, tack and bacon then lay up the clay early in the morning before the heat of day County Galway I will not miss you now Whiskey Island I will be your plow When I found my way to Ohio a younger man was I stacking swollen boys like cordwood after fever last July Mother Mary how did I survive Smoke pail on my shoulders, all callouses and bone Thirty cents to work a day four tons of bloody stone Oh Ben Bulben I will not miss you now Whiskey Island I will be your plow. I slept and dreamed the other night My Sligo maid and I had slipped away to Innisfree to listen to the tide in evenings glimmer filled with linnet’s wings Then the jigger-boy comes shouting bringing whiskey with the stew sharp shovels for the diggers clean water for the mules Knocknarea Mountain I will not miss you now Whiskey Island I will be your plow © 2003 Martin Koop (ASCAP) martinkoop@martinkoop.com
On 15 Playlists
Comments
The artist currently doesn't allow comments.