I am a culchie, my brothers born in Dublin call me that all the time, they are Jackeens, or Dublin born. Not my fault they weren’t born on the West Coast. The song describes the many troubles and travails that poor man come across on his travels from the West Coast At the beginning of the songs, the protagonist of the story states that he is “off to reap the corn” or intending to become a migrant agricultural labourer. He begins his journey by biding farewell to his family and friends. He leaves his hometown of Tuam on foot, resting in Mullingar where the local women make fun of his clothes. He next arrives in the Irish capital city Dublin, but is robbed of his meagre possessions, but struggles to find the thief because very few people in Dublin spoke Irish. . He hops a ship in the harbour headed for England, and is placed in the hold with the pigs where he experiences severe sea sickness off the coast of Holyhead, Wales. He arrives in the English city Liverpool where he is mocked by the locals because of his Irishness. He engages them in a fight using his blackthorn shillelagh, but is outnumbered until a group of Irishmen from County Galway come to his rescue (“join in the affray”), the first people who have helped him on his voyage. As you can see brothers o’ mine even in a song the West Coast has to come to the rescue.