I’m sure it’s been asked here before but of course a search yields nothing.
What is the translation of “MUSHA RINGUM DURAM DA” as it is sung in the traditional Irish/appalachian tune “Whiskey in the Jar?”
I guess this question presupposes that there is a translation. I wondered if it was some sort of misinterpretation of actual Gaelic.
Oh yeah, and what about the whole “Whack fol da daddy-o?”
Check out this looooong page .
And that’s just a little bit 
Yeah I saw that long winded post. Just wondering if there was any validity to it. That’s the only thing I’ve ever found that even gave a possibility of the meaning. Most sites say it means nothing at all. Shoot.
It’s not uncommon for folk songs to have parts that don’t fit all that well logically. Like “The Coo Coo Bird” has a verse about a bird, a couple of verses about a woman, a couple of verses about gambling. The verses usually sung to “Soldier’s Joy” are the same way.
There is an Irish tune called “Whiskey in the Jar” (my old standby The Fiddler’s Companion lists a G major reel with that title); my guess is that at some point words got set to it, and some of the words floated away and got attached to another song entirely, in this case an old ballad about a highwayman, and then that song passed through enough non-Irish-speaking ears and throats so that the Irish part got hopelessly mangled. The song that’s sometimes titled “Whiskey You’re the Devil” also has the “whiskey in the jar” line without the musha-ringa stuff but with a lot of skiddly-idle stuff. Do a Google search on the meaning of the chorus of “Iko Iko”/“Jock-o-Mo” and you realize that once a song in another language gets corrupted it’s hard to wind back the tape. It even happens to songs in English (look at the lyrics for most bluegrass versions of “Wildwood Flower” for an example).
I think the title of the song should be Whiskey in the Jarro, not Whiskey in the Jar, as this is how it’s sung in the lyrics and I agree that whiskey in the jar doesn’t really have much to do with the song.
I googled what does Jarro mean in gaelic and it said “Pilgrim” and whiskey could mean “Water of Life”. So that would make better sense. The singer is the pilgrim and he has the water of life in him, or he still has life in him yet.
The musha rein part, I googled musha and it said it could be an expression of disbelief. So that would make sense too, he’s in jail and has disbelief over his predicament, ie that Marley betrayed him and that he shot the guy and is in prison.
Whack for my Daddy-o - I didn’t google it but my own idea is that he’s ended up with nothing.
So, the lyrics could mean:
He has disbelief over his predicament -Musha rein durum do durum da
He’s ended up with nothing - Whack for my daddy o
But he still has life (hope) in him yet - There’s whisky in the jarro
Not saying it’s not true, but I don’t go for the idea that the chorus is just goobledly gook. Cause 3 lines is a lot of goobledly gook and the other lyrics tell the story quite well.
Everyone’s making it too complicated. Nonsense words are a common part of Irish folk music. They don’t need to mean anything.
I must say that this surprises me a lot.
“Jarro” by itself is also a Spanish word that simply means… “jar”.
I checked the main Celtic languages for the word “pilgrim”, and it does not look like “jarro” at all in any of them:
oilithrigh (Irish Gaelic)
eilthirich / deòra Dhè (Scottish Gaelic)
pererin (Welsh)
pirc’hirin (Breton)
pergherin (Cornish)
pirgrin (Manx)
Where did you find that “jarro” thing?
A lot of folk songs include a “folderoladooda” nonsense refrain at some point.
I typed in: “What does Jarro mean in Gaelic” into google and it said:
Jarro was a name for a pilgrim from the Gaelic word deoradh. The deoradh kept the relics of saints.
Oh, and the “water of life” that whiskey can be a synonym for isn’t anything metaphysical like the soul. It’s just a different kind of booze, as in, a solution of mostly ethanol and water, intended to be drunk as an intoxicant. And the “jar” is a glass or clay container for holding a liquid, such as the aforementioned booze.
It’s also not “whack for the daddy-o”, it’s “clap”. As in, make a sharp sound by putting your hands together. The singer and audience traditionally clap at that point.
First of all, deòradh is a word in Scottish Gaelic, not in Irish. The Irish cognate is deoraí, which lost its -dh in a spelling reform. It means “wanderer” or “exile.” It doesn’t mean “pilgrim,” except in the expression deoraí Dé, which is literally “God’s wanderer.” Both come from Old Irish déorad, which means “exile” but can mean “pilgrim” in some contexts.
Google, especially Google’s AI results, are not always accurate.