The Stone Outside Dan Murphy's Door  (Johnny Patterson, 1840-1889)
as sung by Bob Harke with Kennedy’s Kitchen


There's a sweet garden spot in our memory,
It's the place we were born and reared.
Oh, it's long years ago since we left it,
But return there we will if we're spared,
And our friends and companions of childhood
Would assemble each night near the store,
And the music it would ring, and sweet songs we would sing
On a stone outside Dan Murphy's door.

And those days in our hearts we will cherish,
Contented although we were poor,
And the songs that were sung, in the days when we were young,
On a stone outside Dan Murphy's door.

When our day's work was o’er we would meet there,
In the winter or spring all the same,
And the boys and the girls all together,
We would join in some innocent games.
When Dan Murphy would bring down his fiddle,
And his daughter looked after the store,
And the music it would ring, and sweet songs we would sing
On a stone outside Dan Murphy's door

Back again will our thoughts often wander
To the scenes of our childhood home.
There are friends and companions we left there,
It was poverty caused us to roam.
Since then in our lives we have prospered,
But then in our hearts we feel sore,
For our memories they will fly to the days long gone by,
On a stone outside Dan Murphy's door.

"Patterson was a ballad maker, song writer, musician and circus entertainer. The colourful character first started work as an apprentice in his uncle's workshop in Ennis as a nailer. He joined the British Army as a drummer boy and became quite competent not alone on the drums but also as a piccolo player. After five years army service he joined the circus as an entertainer. He entertained large audiences at home and abroad with such well known companies as Risarelli's, Cooper & Bailey's and Powell & Clarke's Great Circus. Patterson composed the well- known songs "The Stone Outside Dan Murphy's Door", "Bridget Donahue" and "The Garden Where the Praties Grow"."

" Johnny Patterson was raised in Ennis, some miles north of Newmarket, and left there was good in 1854, so, if the song is actually based on his life, it's set in the early 1850s, and based in Ennis. Local historians have researched the subject carefully and concluded that the Stone was set at Murphy's shop in Simm's Lane, Ennis: Johnny Patterson spent his childhood just round the corner. The purpose of the Stone was protect the gable end of the building from damage from passing carriages, carts, etc. The original Stone was removed in 1928 when the Simm's Lane area was being re-surfaced. Today the shop is owned by the Guerin family."

RETURN TO HENDRICKSON'S SONG PAGE