“‘Whiskey in the Jar'” is a famous Irish traditional song about a highwayman (usually in the Cork and Kerry mountains), who is betrayed by his wife or lover. One of the most widely performed traditional Irish songs, it is also particularly known through its 1970s chart version by the Irish rock band Thin Lizzy. It is sung with many variants on locations and names; a typical version begins:
As I was a-walkin round Kilgary Mountain
I met Colonel Pepper and
his money he was countin’,
I rattled me pistols and I drew forth me
saber,
Sayin’ “Stand and deliver, for I am the bold deceiver!”
Musha rig
um du rum da, / Whack fol the daddy O,
Whack fol the daddy O, / There’s
whiskey in the jar.Folk Songs of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, ed.
William Cole, arr. Norman Monath, Cornerstone Library, New York,
1961.