Ben Clingain

Dylan Mc Connell at the engine of the Buncrana Train

The Buncrana Train

“Will it make it, can it make-it”

The folks in the camp used to say you could walk to Buncrana faster than the train. In reality that was sometimes possible, but as soon as we could ride bicycles we proved we could bike there as fast as the puffing billy. There was a song we used to sing about the train. Nobody knew who wrote it, or where it came from, but we all knew the words and the chorus:
Ben Clingain

“For Crockett is the driver and Bonner is the guard
If you have your ticket all your troubles you discard.
Be you fop or summer swell, to them it’s all the same
For every man must pay his fare on the Buncrana train.

Under the bridge at springtown the whistle gives a blast
As the men and women of the camp wave as we go past
Their children jumping wildly some naked in the rushes
the driver picks up speed to save its passengers blushes

we pass Bridgend, reach Burnfoot and there we give a call
To view that ancient city and its Corporation Hall
The King of Tory Island is a man of widespread fame
His royal carriage is attached to the Buncrana train.

We go to Fahan to have a dip and stroll along the sand
The up the dunes to have a cup of coffee at the stand
The barmaid she is charming, with her you can remain
Until it’s time to go back on the Buncrana train.”

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Ma's Old Hut

This old Hut we used to live in was made of corrugated tin
Needed some painting and some paper on the wall
And the rattle on the roof was like the sound of hob-nailed boots
Especially when the rain and hailstones fall
It seems so long ago to Springtown we did go
We left Lizzie’s house in Derry’s old Bogside
In Springtown we did find huts the Yankees left behind
And we squatted there and got back all our pride

Chorus
She’s a father and a mother a sister and a brother
She’s a friend when life is tough and you’re alone
She’s a preacher and a teacher, she’s a shoulder to cry on
And all she did, she did it on her own

All the neighbors came out looking when Ma did the Sunday cooking
And many a hungry mouth would share our table
Down the road was Farmer Bob and his orchard we would rob
And we’d buy his big brown eggs when we were able
It was a hard life in the camp, where the huts were cold and damp
But there wasn’t any use in our complaining
We had real simple goals pushed newspaper in the holes
To keep the water out when it was raining

Chorus

At the factory they did toil making shirts by the river Foyle
And many a night Ma had to bring work home
It was really no mean feat, trying to make sure ends would meet
But she fed us all and I never heard her moan
Now the years have long passed by, she’s living in New York, NY
We think of bygone days of cold and damp
We were poor but happy there, ‘twas a life beyond compare
In the bad old good old days in Springtown Camp

Lyrics only

Tillies Factory before it was demolished

Goodbye Tillies Factory

I work at Tillies factory that overlooks the Foyle
We make shirts for all the troops to wear, it’s a life of drudge and toil.
We all love Cissie Kelly and Ruby Clingins too
They both say that any work beats signing on the ‘broo

I put a letter in the shirt and shipped it off to war
A Yank wrote back and said he’d like to meet me in a bar
He was six feet tall and handsome, was brought up in LA
And now he wants to marry me and take me far away

CHORUS
So goodbye Tillies factory, goodbye Creggan Heights
I’m off to California to see all those bright lights.
I’ve got my Yank, I’ll have six kids and live life in the sun
My days in Hogg & Mitchell making shirts is surely done.

I said goodbye to all the girls at the Embassy and the Crit
We married at St Eugene’s, my man was quite a hit.
We cruised across the ocean and landed in New York,
Took a train to California to the sunshine and no work.

And now we live in Fresno, our six kids and the smog
I often think of Creggan Heights, the Lone Moor and the Bog.
I think of all the factory girls, the Strand Road and the Foyle,
Nights dancing with sailors, the days of drudge and toil.

CHORUS

I was a GI bride once, but now I’m middle class
I’ve got no time for bigotry, that Paisley’s such an ass.
But when I think of Derry and the daily factory grind
I cry for all my friends still there and the things I left behind

CHORUS

Lyrics only

Lily Stanley and Noreen Killen

Derry Girls

Chorus: See the young Derry girls running down to the quay
There’s a ship with Yankee sailors just in from the sea
They’ll give you gum and nylons and if you’re real lucky
You’ll be a GI bride and end up living in Kentucky

There’s a town way up in Ireland that’s on the river Foyle
Where’s there’s no work for the men, and the women do the toil
They slave in the factories making shirts for the navy
They get a half an hour for lunch, just potato soup and gravy

Ma worked there in Tillie’s factory, learned to make shirts
Ten hours every day, and got treated just like dirt
The horn would sound, the factory gate stayed open just till eight
If she came only a second late, it’d get slammed in her face

All the men trained greyhounds, there was nothing else to do
They raced them at the Brandywell, but mostly they would lose
They hung around street corners, waiting for the dole
Or down Stanley’s Walk by the gas yard to queue up for the coal

The lucky men that had a job worked at the quay as dockers
My da went off to Scotland to be a tatie-hoker
My sisters both had no choice but to leave school at fourteen
And run to join the factory girls, making blouses for the Queen

They say it was the worst of times in Derry in those days
Men worked across the Irish Sea to get a decent pay
And the girls escaped by marrying the sailor of their choice
And moved to Utah, Idaho, Chicago or Detroit

Lyrics only

Ben Clingain