To-me-way-yah! We'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots! To-me-way-yah! Who stole Paddy Doyle's boots?! To-me-way-yah! We'll bowse her up and be done! To-me-way-yah! We'll all drink brandy and gin! To-me-way-yah! We'll all shave under the chin! To-me-way-yah! We'll all throw dirt at the cook!
To me way-a-a-yah! We'll pay Paddy Doyle for his boots! We'll roll up the sail as we sing, a-yah! And pay Paddy Doyle for his boots! We'll toss up the bunt with a fling, a-yah! And hang Paddy Doyle for his boots! We'll all drink whiskey and gin, a-yah! And hang Paddy Doyle for this boots! To me way-a-a-yah! We'll all sling soot at the cook!

Tommy Boyd version

Old Tommy Boyd had a good pair of boots, Ch: Heigh ho! heave ho! Who robbed Tommy Boyd of his boots? 'Twas an old thief from London town, Who was used to rubbing poor sailormen down, Who had Tommy Boyd and done him quite brown, Who robbed Tommy Boyd of his boots.

Source: "The 'Chanties' of Sailors," Mataura Ensign (New Zealand), August 13, 1896

This shanty was used specifically for bunting a sail in furling, and was sung in chorus, the last syllable a heavy shout as all hands gave a tremendous lift to the heavy canvas sail. The middle folds of a half-furled sail, i.e. the bunt, is raised on to the yard with one strong pull. Rarely did the process require more than one or two attempts. Harlow gives his account in The Making of a Sailor:

There must be teamwork to accomplish any heavy undertaking and the chantey, wherever sung, marks the time where all willing arms must pull in unison.

With several lines of “Paddy Doyle” bordering on the obscene, the words that we sang cannot be given here. Strange to say, all those men knew what was coming for they sang the lines as if they were reading from a book, so familiar were they with the chantey. One seldom hears more than two verses of this song, however, to toss a bunt.

Colcord (Roll and Go) identifies Paddy Doyle as a famous dive-keeper in Liverpool who allegedly kept a cow’s horn in the back yard for “green hands” to solemnly march around so as to be able to tell a doubting skipper they had “been three times round the Horn!” Most other authors attribute that feat to Paddy West but Doyle is generally associated as a fellow inn-keeper. Captain Maitland, for example, recounts that Doyle “kept an old run-down boarding house - a straw house, up on the London Road (I think)”. Fred H. Buryeson in the “Coast Seamen’s Journal”, June 23, 1909, states

Paddy Doyle, by the way, was a Liverpool shoe-maker, known to all the “packet rats” sailing out of that port for the excellency of his sea-boots, and beloved for his readiness to trust any of the boys for the price of a pair when they were outward bound across “the big pond.”

Whether this praise was tongue-and-cheeck, Buryeson was on board the Young America in 1860. John Winrow, Assistant Curator at the National Museums Liverpool finds a Patrick Doyle listed in Gores Liverpool trade directory for 1841 owning a marine store close to the docks at Nelson court, ‘19, Queen street - stores, 12 and 14, Neptune street. The directory also lists a Hugh Doyle, boot & shoemaker, 79 Paradise Street, again not far from the docks.

The boots did not always belong to Paddy. An article on “The ‘Chanties’ of Sailors,” printed in the Mataura Ensign (New Zealand) on August 13, 1896, gives the Tommy Boyd version above as the chant for bunting topsails, “specially peculiar, because, amid the roar of wind and wave, the sound comes down in weird resonance from the invisible singers aloft.” Here the culprit is “an old thief from London town.” Compare St. Helena Soldier, where a Shanghai boarding-master steals the boots.

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