Buying the albums sampled on “You Can All Join In”.
I have just remembered that the original CD has an insert with copious notes written by Patrick Cambell-Lyons himself, and as is fitting and proper, we shall start with those. They kick off like this:
“The Irish are an Island people in every sense of the word. As a young boy I often heard the grown-ups remark: “so and so went across the Water”, and “it was a sad day to see them go and leave us”. Which water did they mean? It was more likely the people from the western counties of Kerry, Galway, Donegal and Clare that went across the Atlantic waters to make their fortunes in the cities of Boston, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, while the sons and daughters of Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford and Cork would cross the pond to Liverpool, London, Birmingham and Leeds, where according to an uncle of mine “the streets were paved with gold”…..and all you had to do was work hard and mind your own business.”
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