Children of the Dead End: The Autobiography of an Irish Navvy

"The road runs north, the road runs south, and there foot-easy, slow, The tramp, God speed him! wanders forth, and nature's gentry go. Gentlemen knights of the gravelled way, wh...

"He tramped through the colourless winter land or swined in the scorching heat, The dry skin hacked on his sapless hands or blistering on his feet; He wallowed in mire, unseen,...

"When rugged rungs stand up to fight, stark naked to the buff, Each taken blow but gives them zest, they cannot have enough, For they are out to see red blood, to curse and club...

Sixpence an hour meant thirty shillings a week, and a man was allowed to work overtime until he fell at his shift. For Sunday work ninepence an hour was given, so the navvies to...

"Do you mind the nights we laboured, boys, together, Spreadeagled at our travail on the joists, With the pulley-wheels a-turning and the naphtha lamps a-burning, And the mortar...

I had never seen an omnibus. I did not know that it was necessary to take off my hat when entering a dwelling. I had never used a fork when eating. I had never been introduced t...

"When I go back to the old pals, 'Tis a glad, glad boy I'll be; With them will I share the doss-house bunk And join their revels with glee, And the lean men of the lone shacks W...

There was a cold air running along the street when I stepped into the open and took my way along the town to Moran's model where I lodged. I felt disappointed, vexed, and ashame...

"We'll lift our time and go, lads, The long road lies before, The places that we know, lads, Will know our like no more. Foot forth! the last bob's paid out, Some see their last...

The potato merchant met us on Greenock quay next morning, and here Micky's Jim marshalled his squad, which consisted in all of twenty-one persons. Seventeen of these came from I...

Up till this period of my life I had no taste for literature. I had seldom even glanced at the daily papers, having no interest in the world in which I played so small a part. O...

"My mother's love for me is warm, Her house is cold and bare, A man who wants to see the world Has little comfort there; And there 'tis hard to pay the rent, For all you dig and...

When we arrived in Glasgow I parted company with Moleskin Joe. I told him that I was going to work on the railway if I got an opening, but my mate had no liking for a job where...

"The sweat was wet on his steaming loins and shoulders bent and scarred, And he dropped to earth like a spavined mule that's struck in the knacker's yard. Bury him deep in the r...

The middle of September was at hand, and a slight tinge of brown was already showing on the leaves. We were now working on a farm where the River Clyde broadens out to the water...

The darkness had long since fallen over the tumbledown rookeries of the Glasgow alley wherein this story is to end, but the ragged children still played in the gutters and the o...

I devoted the fifteen shillings which remained from my wages to my own use. My boots were well-nigh worn, and my trousers were getting thin at the knees, but the latter I patche...

"Put a green cross beneath the roof on the eve of good Saint Bride And you'll have luck within the house for long past Lammastide; Put a green cross above the door--'tis hard to...

"A nail in the sole of your bluchers jagging your foot like a pin, And every step of the journey driving it further in; Then out on the great long roadway, you'll find when you...

"Since two can't gain in the bargain, Then who shall bear the loss When little children are auctioned As slaves at the Market Cross? Come to the Cross and the Market, Where the...

About a week after, on the stroke of eleven at night, I was washing potatoes for breakfast in a pond near the farmhouse. They were now washed always on the evening before, so th...

Jim and I had a long talk together, and I asked him about the people at home, my father and mother, the neighbours, their doings, their talk, and all the rest of the little thin...

"Where the people toil like beasts in the field till their bones are strained and sore, There the landlord waits, like the plumbless grave, calling out for more Money to flounce...

The law has it that no man must work as a platelayer on the running lines until he is over twenty-one years of age. If my readers look up the books of the ---- Railway Company,...

"The wee red-headed man is a knowing sort of fellow, His coat is cat's-eye green and his pantaloons are yellow, His brogues be made of glass and his hose be red as cherry, He's...

So what does it matter if time be fleet, And life sends no one to love us? We've the dust of the roadway under our feet And a smother of stars above us.

"What the hell is it to you?" asked Moleskin, assuming a pugilistic pose all of a sudden. Love of fighting was my mate's great trait, and I found it out in later years. He would...

"Oh, God! that this was ended; that this our toil was past! Our cattle die untended; our lea-lands wither fast; Our bread is lacking leaven; our life is lacking friends, And sho...

That night I slept in a watchman's hut on the streets, and in the morning I obtained a slice of bread from a religious lady, who gave me a long harangue on the necessity of lead...

A watery mid-November sun was peering through a leafless birch tree that rose near my sleeping-place when I awoke to find a young healthy slip of a woman looking at me with a pa...

"No more the valley charms me and no more the torrents glisten, My love is plain and homely and my thoughts are far away; The great world voice is calling and with throbbing hea...

"'Awful Railway Disaster,' The newspapers chronicle, The men in the street are buying. My! don't the papers sell. And the editors say in their usual way, 'The story is going wel...

At that time there were thousands of navvies working at Kinlochleven waterworks. We spoke of waterworks, but only the contractors knew what the work was intended for. We did not...

I left my job on Tuesday, and tramped about for the rest of the week foot-free and reckless. The nights were fine, and sleeping out of doors was a pleasure. On Saturday night I...

"When brown trout leap in ev'ry burn, when hares are scooting on the brae, When rabbits frisk where e'er you turn, 'tis sad to waste your hours away Within bald Learning's droni...

Late in the September of the same year I got a job at digging sheep drains on a moor in Argyllshire. I worked with a man named Sandy, and I never knew his second name. I believe...