The Shores of Botany Bay

Farewell to your bricks and mortar,
Farewell to your dirty lime
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks,
and to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin is lying at the quay
For to take old pat with his shovel on his back to the shores of Botany Bay

I’m on me way down to the cape where the ship at anchor lay
To command a bunch of navvies they asked me to engage
I thought I’d stop in for a drink before I went away
For to take a trip on an immigrant ship to the shores of Botany Bay

Farewell to your bricks and mortar,
Farewell to your dirty lime
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks,
and to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin is lying at the quay
For to take old pat with his shovel on his back to the shores of Botany Bay

The boss comes in this morning and says now pat ye know
If you don’t get your navvies out i’m afraid you’ll have to go
Well since he did insult me I demanded all me pay
And I told him straight I was going to emigrate to the shores of Botany Bay

Farewell to your bricks and mortar,
Farewell to your dirty lime
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks,
and to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin is lying at the quay
For to take old pat with his shovel on his back to the shores of Botany Bay

And when I reach Australia, I will go and dig for gold
There’s plenty there for the digging of, or so I have been told
or else I’ll go back to me trade and a 1000 bricks I’ll lay
Because I live for an eight hour shift on the shores of Botany Bay,

Farewell to your bricks and mortar,
Farewell to your dirty lime
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks,
and to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin is lying at the quay
For to take old pat with his shovel on his back to the shores of Botany Bay

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