'On Saturday nights in The Half Moon, a ganger would come in and ask did you want a shift in the morning (pulling cable for Murphy). If you did, you had to guarantee him a drink the next night. The shift might last from seven o'clock until half past twelve, for about five pounds a shift. No documentation- just a bundle of fivers in the pub, and pay the men out'

Mc Alpine's Men is a unique collection of stories from the 200,000 Irishmen who laboured on civil engineering sites, pulled cable, drove tunnels and drank their pay in pubs such as The Crown, The Spotted Dog The Archway Tavern and many more during the building of Post War Britain and beyond.

This collection is edited by Ultan Cowley who, since the early nineties, has devoted himself to recording the stories of Irish emigrants whose lives revolved around the British construction industry in the last century. It will be a delight to those who were there, and a revelation to those who weren't.........