Henry's Songbook

   Make way for the Molly Maguires
   They're drinkers, they're liars but they're men
   Make way for the Molly Maguires
   You'll never see the likes of them again

Down the mines no sunlight shines
Those pits they're black as hell
In mud and slime they do their time
It's Paddy's prison cell
And they curse the day they travelled far
And drown their tears with a jar

Backs will break and muscles ache
Down there there's no time to dream
Of fields and farms, a woman's arms
Just dig that bloody seam
Though they break their bodies underground
Who dare to push them around

(as sung by The Dubliners)

[1964:] Bis zum Jahre 1878 brachen die [Detektive] Pinkertons die Macht einer der mörderischsten Geheimgesellschaften Pennsylvaniens, der irischen Molly Maguires. Unter dem Einfluß dieser Gesellschaft war aus sozialen Kämpfen im Kohlengebiet von Pennsylvanien die blutige Gewaltherrschaft einzelner entstanden. (Jürgen Thorwald, Das Jahrhundert der Detektive 124)

[1982:] [We have] several reports - factual news reports, as well as 'folk narratives' - that men dressed as women took part in episodes of resistance. One hesitates to believe that the heroes of Bajadoz or Waterloo, or their relatives, would dress themselves in women's attire because they lacked 'civil courage'. In Ireland the 'Molly Maguires' were the most belligerent of transvestites. Was this an example of military camouflage, the better to do down the aggressor? (Henderson, Alias MacAlias 253)

[1997:] Irish secret society organised to do battle against the exploitative mineowners [during] labour unrest in the Pennsylvanian coalfields of the 1870s [...]. (Observer, 11 May)

[1996:] A Pinkerton man, James McParland was responsible for breaking up the infamous Molly Maguires, a secret society begun ostensibly to assist Irish miners but which quickly deteriorated into an elitist organised crime syndicate. Posing as James McKenna he wormed his way into the "Mollies" and for three years passed information to his boss. On danger of his life he gave evidence in 1877 which convicted 20 ringleaders. (Carol Foreman, Did You Know?, Glasgow City Libraries and Archives, Glasgow, p 40)

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=5905

Further information cf. "Making sense of the Molly Maguires" by Kevin Kenny(?); Arthur H. Lewis "Lament for the Molly Maguires"(?); Donald L. Miller & Richard Sharpless: The Kingdom Of Coal. Work, Enterprise, and Ethnic Communities in the Mine Fields, U of PA Press, 1985 (ISBN 0-8122-7991-3); George Korson, 'Minstrels of the Mine Patch' has a section on the Molly Maguires; 'Coal Dust on the Fiddle',