Who wrote and what is the origin of the song "Waltzing Matilda?" Is it Irish?

looney_tunes

The lyrics were written by the poet A. B. (Banjo) Patterson. He is thought to have used a tune he heard played by Christina Macpherson, who had heard it played by a band at the races. http://www.nla.gov.au/epubs/waltzingmatilda/1-Orig-Creation.html The tune "was almost certainly the Scottish song ‘Thou Bonnie Wood of Craigielea’. Robert Tannahill wrote the words in 1805 and in 1818 James Barr set them to music (view image)—music that, in turn, was possibly based on the old melody of ‘Go to the Devil and Shake Yourself’ . Thomas Bulch arranged James Barr’s effort for brass band in 1893 with the alternate spelling, ‘Craigielee’. There is also speculation about the relationship it bears to ‘The Bold Fusilier’, a song dated, in some sources, back to the eighteenth century. " http://www.nla.gov.au/epubs/waltzingmatilda/1-Orig-Christina.html so Scottish, not Irish Nov 24 09, 1:51 AM

looney_tunes

Not just a name, a cultural reference. "WALTZING MATILDA The act of carrying the ‘swag’ (an alternate colloquial term is ‘humping the bluey’). Matilda is an old Teutonic female name meaning ‘mighty battle maid’. This may have informed the use of ‘Matilda’ as a slang term to mean a de facto wife who accompanied a wanderer. In the Australian bush a man’s swag was regarded as a kind of de facto wife, hence his ‘Matilda’. (Letter to Rt. Hon. Sir Winston Churchill, KG from Harry Hastings Pearce, 19 February 1958. Harry Pearce Papers, NLA Manuscript Collection, MS2765)" http://www.nla.gov.au/epubs/waltzingmatilda/3-Meanings.html Nov 24 09, 2:23 AM